Barbra Streisand Shares Home Remedies and Guilty Pleasures

Dec. 9, 2014— -- At 72, Barbra Streisand admits that she's still a work in progress when it comes to diet and exercise.

"I love coffee ice cream, and we go to friends’ houses and I can’t resist even the bread," the legendary singer said on today's "The Dr. Oz Show." "I am a food addict. Tell you the truth. I am literally a food addict. I cannot stay away from foods that I love, which are bad for me -- you know, like carbs that are bad. So I’m still a work in progress, as far as nutrition."

Streisand, who frequently emails Dr. Mehmet Oz with medical questions, stopped by his show to talk about heart disease in women, an issue about which she is passionate.

Streisand said that when women with heart disease show up with symptoms that look nothing like their male counterparts, they can "go misdiagnosed and therefore untreated, and therefore you could go home the next day after the doctor has said take an antacid or an aspirin. And then, a lot of women, stories that I've heard, the next day they're dead in their living room because they weren't taken seriously again."

Streisand encouraged women to take themselves seriously, even if doctors don't.

"Women should understand that because they now go to work and take care of the family, really, they're the center of the family. They will put other things ahead of themselves, so they have to know: Get heart checked," she told Oz. "When you go to your doctor, you ask for an EKG, tell them your family history. Know your cholesterol, your blood pressure and so forth."

Streisand also shared a home remedy for colds that she learned from her mother.

"When I was a kid, my mother used to put mustard plasters on me," she said. "You take a sheet, you rip it, you make a sheet. You make dried mustard with hot water. You put it in between the two pieces of fabric, and you put it on your chest and on your back, and that got rid of your cough. I bet you that is better than what they have today."