Apple Cider Vinegar

By Dale Bredesen, M.D., Chief Science Officer for Apollo Health

Have you seen the new limited series, Apple Cider Vinegar? It is a true story of two young women who garner fame and large social followings by professing to be cured of cancer through diet and “alternative medicine” treatment. But both are lying — one to herself and one to the world. For one, her sarcoma returns and claims her life, and for the other, there was never any cancer to begin with, it was all a lie from the start — but for years a very successful and lucrative lie, at the expense of thousands of followers who were misguided into bogus cancer therapies.

As one reviewer said, “The series is about the difficulty of determining the truth in an age of unregulated social media, a landscape where a poster’s opinions count for as much as a research expert’s evidence and the beliefs of people with no medical expertise are given as much credibility as an entire peer review board.”

We are seeing much the same thing in brain health — here is a sample from just a few days ago: “A Harvard scientist recently uncovered the shocking true cause of memory loss … problem is … it’s so controversial, it caused an uproar … and went against the entire medical establishment. Which is why the story was kept out of the news. Yet, it clearly explains why you start to lose memory … why nothing has worked in the past … and what to do when that happens …” And of course, we are asked to buy the new snake oil being peddled, none of which has any evidence of efficacy.

But the new series raises an obvious question, without ever answering, or even addressing it: Why do so many of us search for optimal treatments beyond simply the words of “the experts”? Why should it not be enough when a university professor tells us, with the most somber assurance, that we, or our loved ones, have Alzheimer’s, and nothing can be done? In fact, I have talked with a number of people who went through just that, but then saw firsthand evidence that cognitive decline could be reversed, and improvement sustained, using a precision medicine protocol such as ReCODE.

Sadly, the experts do not need trust, or caring, or optimal outcomes, as long as they have grants.  As someone who spent his entire career as a university professor and neurologist, it is one of the most disappointing observations — time and time again, there seems to be a lack of caring about the best outcomes available, with a focus instead on the party line, the failed pharmaceuticals, and the latest committee publication that deems Alzheimer’s hopeless despite example after example of published success. No wonder there has been such a loss of trust.

For anyone who has been to a functional medicine physician, and treated successfully for lupus (as our daughter was years ago, after failure from two of the world’s leading rheumatologists — by the way, she is doing great nearly 20 years later) or arthritis or gout or metabolic syndrome or cognitive decline or any of many other conditions, you may have noted that patients are flocking to such physicians because they bring results not available in standard of care medicine — and yet, you may be shocked to see that Wikipedia labels this “quackery.” The data prove otherwise, of course. If we are to offer the best hope to those in need, the “experts” will have to quit shilling for pharma, will have to become expert in all of the treatment modalities available — indeed, research into what actually works should be a top priority of leading medicine and neurology departments — and have to focus on dialogue and truth rather than pushback and denigration. Not only would that improve standard of care outcomes, it would reduce the adherence to unproven claims on social media and restore trust in our medical standards. As shown in Apple Cider Vinegar, lies of commission can be devastating. But as many of our medical leaders have demonstrated, lies of omission can be just as damaging.