Fact Check
Dr. Mehmet Oz, television personality and 2022 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, has had a colorful career, but winning a Nobel Prize is not among his achievements. Since 2021, online articles and posts claim he won the Nobel Prize for medicine, including this post that wonders if it was for a “memory pill.”
The “memory drug” in question could be referring to a number of instances where “The Dr. Oz Show” and Oz himself promoted brain supplements meant to enhance memory. Oz himself has made a number of more scientifically suspect claims, including those about weight-loss pills; telling parents that apple juice contained dangerous levels of arsenic; and claiming women who carry cellphones in their bras could get breast cancer. The on-air medical advice he dispensed on “The Dr. Oz Show” has been frequently criticized and debunked over the years.
Which brings us back to the impossibility of his winning a Nobel Prize for medicine. One 2021 blog piece by Benzi Kluger, who says he is a professor of neurology, appears to be written as satire: “Coming off of the heels of being the top-running host for Jeopardy, Dr. Oz’s amazing year continues with his nomination and acceptance of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his outstanding contributions in challenging the scientific community to push the frontiers of medicine beyond the so-called bounds of reason and evidence.”
Looking through the Nobel archives, there is no evidence of Oz's winning or being nominated for any such award, nor is he on the list of winners for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
Oz has espoused many controversial opinions before, and has spread questionable medical claims, even as he has won Emmy awards. But a Nobel Prize is not among his list of strange and unusual career highlights.