Green Light with Chris Long - Super Bowl LIV on Radio Row with Dr. Oz. Sports, Art, CTE, Youth Coaches & Hangovers

Episode Date: February 2, 2020

Super Bowl LIV on Radio Row with Dr. Oz. Sports, art, CTE, youth coaches & hangovers | Chalk Media. The highlight from Chalk Media's day on NFL radio row was having Dr. Oz join Chris "the smart drinker" Long for this Green Light Exclusive. A Philadelphia Eagles fan at heart, Dr. Oz gives his thoughts on the importance of youth sports and coaches, CTE, the benefits of medical marijuana, and how to cure a bad hangover. About Chalk Media: Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities. Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space. Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off-limits at Chalk - hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coolest guest I've had on Greenlight podcast, Dr. Oz, somebody I grew up watching on TV, and I'm always, I'm Mr. WebMD. I'm always, you know, like I've got questions for the internet all the time about my health. Now you're sitting right here. I got a bunch of them, some of her hangover related. We're talking about Hangover. But you mentioned WebMD. So Oprah and I started a company when my show started 10 years ago called ShareCare. The guy who runs it is the man who founded WebMD, Jeff Arnold, who's a great athlete.

He's helped me a lot. Yeah, he has. And I'll tell you, it is remarkable how much that. has changed world. Most countries don't have the equivalent of a WebMD or a share care. They got to just go figure out for themselves. Well, we're the country that needs it the most. I know, exactly. Where hangovers are probably, number one searched item this week probably.

You know there's Sickness Monday, Super Sickness Monday? No. 14 million people will call out of work on Monday because they're sick. From the Super Bowl. From the Super Bowl. That's insane. That just goes to show that nobody's watching the game. They're partying it up. They don't remember the game. Yeah, they don't remember the game. And I just learned this. You're a Philly guy.

I was bored. You know, I grew up in the Philadelphia area, huge Eagles fan. There we go. Huge Eagles fans. I love this. And I, when I came, I come to the game every year, but I came two years ago, and I sat with the 76ers. Oh, really? To watch the victory.

And that, that's a playoff game. Yeah, the Super Bowl. Oh, you get a Super Bowl. You came to Super Bowl, yeah. Cold. It was cold there. Talk about sick. Did you know the entire team was sick?

No. Are you kidding? We should have called you. I wouldn't fucking hit you up. I'd said, hey, Doc, come help us out here. I didn't know that. Well, we were staying the Mall of America. Yeah, yeah.

And if you know the Mall of America, it's two hotels annexed by the mall. Right. And the Patriots were all sick. We were all sick. It's just germs passing and nobody could go outside. Well, this event was in that walkway between the two hotels and the Mall of America. And there's a zip line there. And I always think this is like a petri dish.

Yeah, dude. Come on. Well, how did you play like that with that? Well, I am very aware of my body. And like, I'm one of those people. I wouldn't say a hypochondriac, but I'm like borderline. Especially an athlete, you're getting ready for the biggest game of your life. So when you start to feel a little run down, you know, when the sickness is coming on,

you're like, common cold, whatever. I'm Friday night, I'm sitting there. I'm like, am I getting chills? Like, oh, no. And those guys getting IVs and, you know, it was undercover kind of bad. And when a flu bug hits or something like that in a locker room, forget staff. I mean, but like, it just bounces around fast. So what did it, they give you IVs, they put your antivirals?

What do they do to get you guys better so you can play on Sunday? I guess, you know, we take a lot of Z-packs. Okay. You try not take too many because then they don't work, right? Exactly. You know, fluids, they say rest, but they're talking out of both sides of their mouth because they're like, get your rest. You've got to be down here at 7 a.m. tomorrow and we'll be working. Well, the rule of thumb if you're sick is if the illness is above your neck, exercise. Okay.

It actually opens up your passages. If the illness is below your neck, don't work out. Really? Because if you had a true virus with muscle pains and aches and intestinal, I mean, who wants to go diarrhea on a treadmill? No, no, no. It's not, no. It's not. No, it's a sugar. But you're a burns man. I have a birds fan.

You're a birds fan, and you're an athlete. I played football in college, played in Philadelphia also, obviously. I was all-state. In fact, my only big concussion was in that all-star game that I played in. Really? But in college, I never got hurt. Of course, I wasn't good enough to play at your level, but it was... Well, you actually made a good decision if you had a choice.

I mean, like, I'd rather been you than me. But I was thinking about this recently, because I get asked and getting asked, would I recommend sports to my kids. And my son did play football, was the captain of his team in high school, and I encouraged him. And I told them what I tell you your listeners and viewers. Football changed my life. It taught me to compete.

It taught me how to deal a failure. It taught me how to win. And the reason our country does so well vis-à-vis other nations is because we actually teach our youth how to do those steps. There's no class in high school about leadership 101. Yeah, no, no, no. That's why I always think football should get a credit because I've applied things that I learned like in college playing for Al Groh at Virginia and the teamwork, the problem solving,

the social stuff. I mean, like getting to go to work every day with kids that did not grow up where I grew up. I mean, it was a game-changing experience for the rest of my life, and you don't get a credit. You don't get paid, okay, that's one thing. But you don't get a credit, you spend eight hours in the building. It's like, especially you were at Harvard, right? Yes. So how do you manage that? It's crazy. The juggling that's required for a college athlete to perform is remarkable, but I don't know of a college athlete that's not thrilled that they had the opportunity to learn those classes because the mentoring that we got with with co-i coach restic when I was playing at Harvard was incredibly important to my future and when I was talking to my son about playing

college sports I said I don't even care if you're any good have a good coach right because no one's going to mentor you that way and we I'm on the president's counselor with fitness and nutrition it's a real crisis in America we don't have any coaches yeah you don't have any high school coach you don't have any middle school coaches a lot of people used to coach don't have the time of the money anymore the kids don't want to play sports it's a thankless job It is, relatively speaking. Except if you're actually doing it. It's like teaching.

It's like teaching. But that is what made this country what it is. And we have forfeited that with the belief that test scores equate them. Listen, I studied math and biology and I had to do it to be a doctor. I'm proud of that. I'm not in any way dismissing the value of that. But this nation will not be the nation that it could be if you don't have a right of passage for young people to become adults.

And we lose that if we don't endorse the arts and sports. I include the arts on purpose. It's not about a bunch of eggheads, you know, banging their heads together. No. It's about the fact that extra-critical activities are critical to the nation. It's funny the way we do look at art and football and the way that we treat one as, you know, acceptable kind of intellectual exercise, and it's art. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not, you know, something academic necessarily.

But neither is football, but both, you know, build a ton of skills. And, you know, I don't know why football always gets the stigma because we're all meatballs, I guess. But there's some really smart players I play with. You have to be very smart to play in a league along time. Oh, for sure. You know, to play in college and balance that time and everything at Harvard or Virginia, it's crazy. Well, you're connecting dots when you're playing sports and art, it's the same thing. In sports, whatever your position is, you're doing 3D spatial reconstructions.

The brain is actually tasked in ways that are much more complicated than studying a differential equation in calculus. And they're both important, but they're different. And art similarly allows you to connect the dots with creativity that others can't. That's a real uniqueness. And you use this. I'll tell you, in heart surgery, there's disproportionate number of athletes because so many of us actually learn to deal with the pressure of being in the OR. Think about it.

We're taking a knife to your chest. Yeah, dude. There's a fine line between arrogance and confidence there. And sports does that same thing. You've got to be confident you can make it, but not so much you do foolish things to hurt your team. Right. You can't be that gambler. There's a fine line.

Don't be that person. So you mentioned the concussion thing. That's always on the radar of everybody. before you, you're the perfect guy to talk to you. Did you watch the Hernandez doc? I had Jonathan Hernandez on my show yesterday. Okay, okay. And he wouldn't go on to doc.

Because he didn't like the way they're doing it. So he had him and his mom had some video that we've, audio material from prison actually, talking to Aaron on it. And it is so compelling to me his story. Because it wasn't just CTE, it wasn't just traumatic de lafayol, that was a big part of it. He was sexually abused as a child, which Jonathan shared me. Jonathan was his quarterback initially.

So at two years older and felt terribly guilty that Aaron was abused and he was unaware of it, and he couldn't protect his younger brother. Their father was a great athlete, but abusive. Abusive. And he said he slapped the gay out of you. So he's just, he's not mine. That's how they phrased it, so he couldn't be honest about who he was. So he lived a lie and it created a conflict in his mind that started to expose itself when he was playing in Florida.

And that team had 20 people go to the pros. I mean, these guys were, Tim Tebow was his quarterback. He had everything, everything, a five-year, $40 million contract for the Pats, and a great athlete, and yet he threw it away because he couldn't live the line anymore. And I think that's a life lesson for all of us, which is why the Aaron Hernandez story is not about good or bad for the NFL. It's about the fall of a potential great American, what went wrong. And I also think, like, it's a lesson with people, and I'm not a CT denier. And, I mean, tau protein is observable in the brain.

You can't do it while we're living, obviously. but if you cut me open right now, I might have some in my head. I might have some. You might have some. We're acting normally. So my issue is always like the jumping the gun on predicting a behavioral outcome. Like I don't think we're there yet. What do you say?

Not there at all. It also depends what part of your brain develops the most impact. The prefrontal cortex, where Aaron did have a lot of damage at autopsy, is the decision-making part of the brain. And so DJ, Jonathan, was pretty honest about saying that he does believe it influenced his decision-making process. And Jonathan shared some insights about what his brother was going through after he was convicted of killing his best friend. And why do you kill your best friend? Basically, his brother-in-law, he killed.

And that's not normal behavior. So I think it was part of it, but it wasn't a lot of trauma. And that's the whole thing is like we just ignore all these, like, for society that wants to talk about mental health and say, we need to get better at it. We pop on the Hernandez documentary, and most people's takeaway is his brain was broken. There was 10, there were 10 traumas in his life. Over and over again. I mean, and it's the complete picture of, you know, what I hate is when somebody tells me is that, like, I played football for 11 years, so I'm going to automatically lose my agency at some point.

You know, there's plenty of good examples of guys that played for a long time. We just don't know enough yet. That's where I'm at. I think a lot of the attention shouldn't be on professional football players who made a decision as an adult. And to your point, I think most will be okay. But we don't know. That mystery's fear. It induces fear.

But I don't want to have moms not let their kids play football anymore. That's not good for any of us. And that's going to happen if we're not serious about the illness and start to do some investigations about how to diagnose it earlier. As an example, we know that young kids, if they get hurt, they'll bounce back pretty quickly. But you've got to make a diagnosis. And I know a lot of young people in the pros don't want to get pulled out of a game because that's their chance. And so we need to make professional football players for comfortable telling the truth that they've been hurt. And that's a big stigma that was around for a long time.

And you see it with guys on the sideline that don't look right and they don't want to come out of the game because it's the ultimate, like, peer pressure sport, and it's the alpha male, like, I can't show weakness. If you had a bad hit and had a head injury that you thought was concussion, would you put yourself out of a game? If it was bad enough, I would. Depending on the game. And that's the problem.

It's like, if I get dinged in the Super Bowl, good luck. You've got to pull me out. And I think that's where, you know, they have to take it out of players' hands. You know, they have to say, you know, we're going to take this decision out of these guys' hands, because we're ingrained to just push through everything. Well, the good news is we're going to have the ability to diagnose Tau protein release on a blood test probably.

So we're close. We're getting close. Generation away? No, no, no, no, a couple years. Not even a couple years. I mean, I saw some really exciting data recently. It could be a year or two, either. But that'll help.

But ultimately, I think the best way of figuring out that you had a concussion is your processing time for decisions. And those are tests you can do right now. They ought to be enforced, not just at the NFL, but throughout all sports. And, you know, give yourself a week or two off, and you'll be able to bounce back and not have had a long-term impact most likely from the concussion.

All NFL players should be at anti-oxygen regimen and be taking omega-3s during the season because it helps the brain rebuild itself. And then there's going to be some point where you say, okay, it's just too much of risk for you. As great as you are, your career is now over. Yeah. And that's okay because I want you to be around

and play the longer. I want to be present. You mentioned, we're talking about concussions. I feel like I have a concussion right now, Doc, but I have a hangover. Okay, I didn't realize that martinis are more than one unit of alcohol usually. Oh my goodness. So my question about hangovers and I've been feeling this way a long time is if they're all these secret hangovers like why do I hear so many cures these hangover

you know fixes none of them work. If one worked everybody would be doing it the only solution is not to drink right? You're a very smart drinker. Most people do not acknowledge that in medicine is an adage if you've got more than one solution you'll have no good ones because Dr. Oz called me a smart drinker But here's the thing. The reason you get a hangover, it's getting to the pathophysiology here. I love pathophysiology. So the brain is like a walnut. It shrivels down when you're hung over because it's primarily about dehydration,

but the coconut skull stays the same. So you're basically shaking that walnut inside of his coconut. It hurts. Right. So a couple things. First off, if you can alternate alcohol with water continually through the evening, that's really helpful. Because if you're not dehydrated, you want to have a problem.

Number two, clear alcohols are much safer. When you have darker alcohols, the brand, these the whiskeys that congenere which is what makes it dark is a toxic it's actually really difficult for the body to deal with that clear alcohols tequila is my favorite okay what tequila do you like I look d'anguevos I mean I like them all yeah I'm a big tequila fan and I thought the part of the reason I love it is it got agave in it comes from agave so it's a little bit Swedish but it's not there's not more calories than other alcohol so 66

calories for an ounce you can put a little salt water or lime and that's all you need so if you're on a diet and all that's why all the women love tequila that's why the space is exploding the people in shape are all drinking tequila what's up dude Prince is there I got Dr. Oz here on the show my buddies this is this is this is this is this thing about this week is you run into all your friends so are you just served drinks should be all set oh it would be great now now my follow-up question on the on the clear liquor is I eat the olives out of the martini glass is that safe they say

lemons are the most unsafe thing in a restaurant of my lemons are unsafe because of the rind okay I'm not concerned about the olives as much okay good good we don't we don't handle the olive real quick before I let you go. I got marijuana on here. I've been I made news because evidently I'm like a serial killer because I smoke marijuana. Yeah, I saw it. Oh, I came out and revealed that I. So why do you smoke the devil's lettuce? I was. Devils lettuce. Yeah, I was an insomniac like my whole life. Also helps me manage my stress. You know, I have anxiety. You know, not terrible. Not debilitating. And, you know, Brandon Brooks, who plays for the Eagles, had to miss a game because of panic attacks this year.

Not like that. But my whole life, trouble sleeping, et cetera. For me, it settles me down at the end of the night, and I'm very thoughtless as I drift off. How old were you being started smoking marijuana? Golly, first year of college. Okay, so a couple of things about marijuana. I'm a big fan of medical marijuana. I think it is a hypocrisy that we will be embarrassed about for generations if we don't deal with the reality that medical marijuana is safer than opiates. A lot of pro athletes do better with medical marijuana than the drugs they might take for crying, aches and pains.

Insomnia is probably a pretty good tool. Anxiety for sure it's effective on. And we should be using it in older folks as well because some of the chronic issues they're facing are better dealt with marijuana. It's safer. That stated, I don't want young people smoking recreationally. I agree.

Well, there's a brain development thing, right? Yeah, the teenagers is not good. And you don't want to grow up thinking you've got to smoke pot to be able to get through life. By the time you're in college, that's mostly gone. But I don't want high schoolers feeling that's part of the equation. I agree.

But you get past that, then most people are on the same page. 34 states have embraced medical marijuana. I actually believe we ought to make it acceptable for older folks because they're safe. That people who are struggling with aging issues, smoke marijuana. The government has got to get out of the way. People at the DEA, NFDFDFDA are not against marijuana. They just want to regulate it, which I think they're right on.

And CBD is a problem because CBD, it's fake. It's all fake. I get the good stuff, the full spectrum. But most people don't know how to get the good stuff. Most people are going to a gas station taking this bullshit. And then also these vape pens, you know, that are killed. killing people, the vitamin E oil in there. They are regulated.

Thank you. Thank you. We agree. The devil's lettuce. This is awesome. This is the man here. Philly fan too.