The New York Times Offers False HOPELESSNESS, Patient Says

By Julie Gregory, Chief Health Liaison for Apollo Health

A factually challenged exposé recently published in the New York Times suggests that the Bredesen Protocol offers “false hope” to Alzheimer’s patients after sharing the tragic story of one woman who started the program in the late stages of the disease process and failed to improve. 

The article was written by Lindsay Gellman, an investigative journalist whose work is driven by a mission to “expose patterns of harm and hold powerful interests to account.” Her reporting track record includes scrutinizing off-brand GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, supplement manufacturers, and even the marketing tactics behind patient testimonials — all in the name of consumer protection. Clearly, Gellman’s focus is watchdog journalism aimed at policing the margins of the health and wellness industry.

It’s also important to consider who funds the watchdog organizations. Gellman’s reporting is backed by grants from institutions such as Johns Hopkins and The Good Science Project both involved in their own Alzheimer’s research with connections to pharmaceutical companies. In today’s world, where the boundaries between research, academic medicine, and Big Pharma have nearly disappeared, these funding connections deserve close scrutiny. When grant dollars flow from institutions entwined with competing research and pharmaceutical power, it raises a difficult but necessary question: are we funding independent scrutiny — or reinforcing the very orthodoxy that dissenting voices seek to challenge?

More than Supplements

After more than eight month of investigative reporting, Gellman either chose to ignore or failed to pick up the basic premise behind the Bredesen Protocol, instead calling it a “lifestyle” program that focuses heavily on supplements. Dr Bredesen’s program is actually based in hardcore science that evolved from decades in the lab, resulting on over 200+ peer-reviewed papers before he began to clinically apply his findings to real people, starting with his first case studies in 2014, then a successful clinical trial in 2022. He is in the midst of a larger randomized controlled trial taking place at six sites across the US. 

His basic premise is that Alzheimer’s isn’t driven by a single cause but rather results from a multitude of various contributors, each rooted in proven science. Examples include insulin resistance, sleep apnea, HSV-1, and many more. All of these have been shown to contribute beta-amyloid accumulation in the brain. His hypothesis asserts that this abeta, initially comes to the brain’s rescue, but when drivers are left untreated it can aggregate, ultimately triggering tau accumulation, another biomarker associated with Alzheimer’s. Instead of blindly trying to eradicate the beta amyloid with medications like Lecanemab, Bredesen identifies what is driving the disease process in the first place then strategically addresses each specific driver using a precision medicine approach. Yes, diet, lifestyle, and sometimes supplements are used to address some of the contributors but to categorize the protocol as a lifestyle program, is doing it a grave disservice.

Does it Work?     

The article also failed to mention that Bredesen is getting promising results that should be drawing the attention of mainstream medicine, including pharmaceutical companies. Granted, his first clinical trial didn’t have a control group and had a very small dataset, but 84% of those either stabilized or improved. This is well documented with pre and post treatment cognitive testing (showing an average of almost a 4 point increase on MoCA), biomarker testing, and even brain imaging which showed significant volumetric increases. The only side effects appear to be improved overall health. Contrast this with Lecanemab, an FDA-approved anti-amyloid therapy, which does NOT improve cognition. Instead,  it only slows cognitive decline (in select subgroups) with serious side effects including worsened cognition, brain swelling, bleeding, and even death. The results of Bredesen’s next larger randomized controlled trial will be published at the end of this year and should be very telling.  

Too Soon? 

In the meantime, those at high risk and some patients are attempting to apply the program themselves. Some are using Bredesen’s books (freely available at any library), free online support through ApoE4.Info and various Facebook groups, and through Apollo Health, a company focused on disseminating the program. Bredesen serves as Chief Science Officer for Apollo Health, for which he does not take a salary, nor has the company ever turned a profit. In the made-up battle between Big Pharma and the Bredesen Protocol, it’s easy to identify the underdog, yet patients continue to flock to this approach. It’s important to understand why.  

Alzheimer’s disease is a relentless, progressive, and fatal condition — one for which mainstream medicine still offers no sustainable treatment. It slowly strips individuals of their identity, independence, and dignity, while placing an unbearable emotional and financial burden on families. Caregivers are often left to shoulder this responsibility alone, with minimal support from government programs. Medicaid provides only limited assistance, and only once a patient is financially destitute. The toll is brutal — not just on the body, but on the spirit of everyone involved. It’s no wonder that patients and their families are willing to explore the only approach that has shown any promise. After all, medicine has long embraced the compassionate use of experimental treatments for life-threatening conditions. Alzheimer’s should be no exception.

Why so many Critics?

The resistance from mainstream medicine to Bredesen’s approach is not just surprising — it’s telling. Rather than acknowledging his innovative thinking or expressing scientific curiosity, many in the field have responded with skepticism, even hostility. This may stem less from a concern for evidence and more from entrenched interests: academic rivalries, grant dependencies, and professional reputations built on conventional paradigms.

Science, at its best, thrives on open-minded inquiry and a willingness to explore new possibilities, especially when patients’ lives hang in the balance. Yet, too often, allegiance to old hypotheses seems to outweigh the urgent need for new solutions. Bredesen’s critics argue that he’s bringing his protocol to patients prematurely. He counters by citing the meaningful recoveries of hundreds of individuals and the ethical principle of compassionate use when the alternative is continued decline.

Cost is another frequent criticism, as expressed by Gellman. The protocol involves visits with functional medicine physicians (often outside insurance networks), bi-annual lab testing, and targeted supplementation — all of which can add up. But as Bredesen points out, the cost of one year in a memory care facility typically exceeds the price of a full decade of treatment under his program. The question isn’t just why this approach has so many critics — it’s whether the medical establishment is willing to put patients before politics.

Clarifying Other Inaccuracies

Beyond misrepresenting the core of the program, the New York Times article by Gellman contained several factual inaccuracies that suggest a troubling bias. A striking example is her repeated reference to Dr. Dale Bredesen as “Mr. Bredesen”— a choice made more than 20 times throughout the piece. This disregards long-standing journalistic standards that honor the title “Doctor” for individuals who hold an M.D., particularly when their medical training is directly relevant to the subject at hand. (It’s worth noting that this courtesy was extended to Dr. Casey Means, who was also cited in the same article.) Dr. Bredesen earned his medical degree from Duke University Medical Center and is a Professor Emeritus at the Buck Institute. Over the course of his distinguished career, he has held academic appointments at prestigious institutions including UCLA, UCSF, and the Burnham Institute.

Contrary to the article’s misleading claim that his medical license lapsed “decades ago,” Dr. Bredesen’s license was active as recently as 2022. He voluntarily let it lapse to devote himself full-time to research, clinical trial development, and public education — areas where he continues to contribute meaningfully.

Further undermining the article’s credibility is its misrepresentation of Bredesen’s bestselling book The End of Alzheimer’s. Not only did Gellman mistakenly share the wrong image, but she also drastically underreported its impact. According to Random House, the book has sold approximately one million copies worldwide and has been translated into 33 languages, not the mere 300,000 copies claimed in the piece.

Most egregiously, the article failed to fairly represent the experiences of patients who have shown measurable improvements under the Bredesen Protocol. Rather than presenting their pre- and post-cognitive test results and biomarker data, which show significant progress, Gellman reduced their stories to trivial anecdotes, such as one patient’s renewed ability to find her purse and another to tie his necktie. This superficial treatment dismisses the profound impact the program has had on many individuals and ignores the mounting data behind those outcomes.

The Real Tragedy

The greatest tragedy of the New York Times article lies not in its factual inaccuracies, but in its potential to cost lives. How many people, desperately searching for answers, will now turn away from a promising approach — not because it failed them, but because biased reporting convinced them it was a scam? The narrative pushed by the mainstream too often condemns those offering hope, accusing them of spreading “false hope,” while failing to acknowledge their own role in promoting something far more dangerous: false hopelessness.

I’ll never forget a moment that underscored this truth. I was sharing my story of cognitive recovery at the Buck Institute before an auditorium full of physicians training to implement the protocol. As I spoke, I noticed a middle-aged woman in the front row, silently weeping. Her friend sat beside her, trying in vain to comfort her. The tears didn’t stop for the entire talk. Afterward, she approached me, took my hand, and through sobs, thanked me. She confided that she had planned to end her life. But hearing that there was something — anything — she could do gave her the strength to reconsider. That day, she chose to fight.

This is the power of hope — not empty promises, but real, data-backed possibilities for change. When we tell people there is nothing they can do, we rob them of the will to keep going. In diseases like Alzheimer’s, where conventional medicine offers no solution, hope is not a luxury — it’s a lifeline.

From my admittedly personal and deeply felt perspective, we must not allow the message to be buried under skepticism and stigma. Alzheimer’s is no longer an unstoppable force. Dementia is no longer an automatic sentence. We must continue to speak out, to share what we’ve seen, and to demand a more open-minded, evidence-driven conversation. Too many lives hang in the balance.

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Julie is the founder and president of the ApoE4.Info non-profit, a grassroots organization of ApoE4 carriers working to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s disease, among the many who have recovered their cognitive health using the Bredesen Protocol. Sharing the knowledge she gained from reversing her cognitive decline, she’s collaborated with Dr. Bredesen and his integrative physician wife, Dr. Aida Lasheen Bredesen, to write the handbook portion of the New York Times bestseller “The End of Alzheimer’s Program.” Julie integrates her background in journalism, public relations, and counseling with her passion for cognitive health to serve as a protocol educator in a consulting role with Apollo Health. You can read her story in “The First Survivors of Alzheimer’s.”