Atlas›Domain XII · Complementary, energy & biofield›Guide 117
Guide XII-117

Alkaline diet

Robert O. Young, Shelley Redford Young
A 29 · L 59 · M 1211 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the "pH Miracle" alkaline diet as presented in the publisher's description of The pH Miracle by Robert O. Young and Shelley Redford Young (Hachette), with the wider "acid–alkaline" diet as described by the British Dietetic Association (BDA) Oncology Specialist Group. The psychotherapist works alongside this method and does not deliver, recommend or supervise the diet; the inventory below is the therapist's own work with a client who is following or considering it.

  • What it is, as promoted. A dietary system holding that foods make the blood "acidic" or "alkaline" and that diet-driven acidity contributes to weight gain, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The publisher's description calls blood pH "the single most important health measurement" and says it is controlled by diet; it lists foods to eat and avoid, recipes and supplements, and promises more energy, stronger immunity and weight loss. [source: Hachette, The pH Miracle page]
  • Theory of change, as its founder holds it. Young's framework, which he calls "The New Biology", attributes disease to over-acidification from diet and lifestyle, draws on Antoine Béchamp's pleomorphic theory rather than germ theory, and is linked to his teaching of live (darkfield) blood microscopy (see entry 181). [source: Gorski, Science-Based Medicine, 2014] These are the founder's claims; they are reported here, not endorsed.
  • Regulatory status (one line). A diet is not itself a licensed treatment; selling it as a cure for disease, or diagnosing and treating illness without a licence, is regulated as the unlicensed practice of medicine (Young was convicted of this in California; see Harm account). [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017; San Diego County DA 2025]
  • Evidence status (one line). The BDA states that diet does not change blood pH (held near 7.4 by the kidneys and lungs), that urine pH does not reflect blood pH, and that no scientific literature shows an alkaline diet prevents cancer. [source: BDA Myth Busting Resource, 2020]

2. Framework

The method as published

  • Elements. Classification of foods as acid-forming or alkaline-forming; lists of foods to favour and avoid (the publisher's description names wheat, bananas, meats and cheese as examples of foods said to acidify); recipes; supplements; and, among followers, home monitoring of urine pH. [source: Hachette; BDA 2020] No quantities, schedules or recipes are given in this guide.
  • Formats in which clients meet it. Books and audiobooks; online and social-media promotion; retreats and paid one-to-one programmes historically run by the founder (the "pH Miracle Retreat" at a Valley Center, California ranch, priced per night and including supplements and "therapies"). [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017; BDA 2020]
  • Who practises it. Self-directed consumers; wellness coaches and unlicensed practitioners; the founder and associates. [uncertain: not verified beyond the founder's operations]
  • Regulation by jurisdiction. USA: diagnosing or treating disease without a licence is a criminal offence under state medical practice acts (California prosecutions above); deceptive health advertising falls to consumer regulators. UK: dietary advice is not a protected activity, but "dietitian" is a protected title, and health claims in advertising are regulated. [synthesis: general regulatory framework; not verified in a source for this entry]

The psychotherapist's framework alongside it [synthesis]

There is no published manual for therapeutic work alongside an alkaline diet. The following phases are the guide's own structure, built from the eating-disorder and fraud-harm sources cited.

  1. Inquiry and record (at intake, revisited at review points). Goal: know what the client is doing, why, and with whom. Move on once the practice, the source of advice, any costs and any change to medical care are recorded.
  2. Meaning and explanatory model (woven into ongoing therapy). Goal: understand what the diet offers (control, hope, purity, identity, community, distrust of medicine). Move on when the client can name what they hope for and fear.
  3. Risk screen (in parallel with 1–2). Goal: detect eating-disorder patterns, stopping or delaying medical care, risks to children or pregnancy, financial exploitation. Escalate at once if serious illness is being treated with the diet instead of medical care.
  4. Informed, values-based decision-making and coordination (as needed). Goal: the client makes their own choice with full information from their doctor or a registered dietitian; with consent, the therapist liaises.
  5. Monitoring and aftermath. Goal: track mood, eating, functioning and medical engagement; address regret, grief, financial loss or reporting where relevant.

Format: within the client's ordinary psychotherapy; no extra sessions are needed unless risk or an eating disorder is identified, in which case multidisciplinary care follows. [source: NEDA, Beat]

3. Guiding principles

  • Non-judgemental curiosity. Ask about diet and alternative practices as routinely as about sleep or alcohol; a client who feels ridiculed stops disclosing. [synthesis]
  • Not the therapist's remedy. Never recommend, sell, prescribe or design the diet, nor argue nutrition science in session; route nutritional and medical questions to the doctor or a registered dietitian. [synthesis]
  • Attribute, don't adjudicate. Describe the acid–alkaline theory as the client and its promoters hold it, and give clinical sources' position where it matters for a decision. [synthesis; BDA 2020]
  • Autonomy with information. Adults may choose their diet; the therapist's task is that the choice is informed and uncoerced, not that it matches the therapist's view. [synthesis]
  • Restriction is a clinical signal. Progressive cutting-out of foods, distress when "safe" foods are unavailable, guilt or feeling unclean after "wrong" foods, and superiority about eating are recognised orthorexia signs warranting assessment. [source: NEDA; Beat]
  • Medical care is not to be displaced. Any plan to stop, delay or replace medical treatment for a serious condition is a risk issue, not a lifestyle preference to be neutrally explored. [synthesis; Harm account]
  • Follow the money and the group. Escalating payments, retreats, supplements and pressure from a charismatic promoter or community are risk markers. [source: NBC 7 2017; San Diego County DA 2025]
  • Consent for coordination. Share information with doctors or dietitians only with consent, except where safeguarding or imminent risk requires otherwise. [synthesis]
  • Children and dependent adults. Restrictive regimes imposed on a child, or on an older or ill adult by a carer or practitioner, engage safeguarding duties. [synthesis; San Diego County DA 2025 (elder abuse conviction)]

4. Intervention inventory

All interventions below are the psychotherapist's own work alongside a client's use of an alkaline diet. None involves designing, endorsing or supervising the diet. Unless a source is given, steps are [synthesis].

4.1 Routine, non-judgemental inquiry and recording

  • Purpose / when: At intake and at reviews, and whenever a client mentions "pH", "acidity", "alkalising", cleansing or a new eating regime. Establishes what is being done, by whom and at what cost.
  • Steps: (1) Ask a general question about diet, supplements and alternative approaches alongside other lifestyle questions. (2) If the alkaline diet is named, ask where the client learned it (book, influencer, practitioner, retreat, group). (3) Ask what it involves for them in broad terms (foods dropped, supplements bought, any testing such as urine-pH strips), without asking for or giving quantities. (4) Ask whether any doctor, nurse or dietitian knows, and whether any medical treatment has been stopped, delayed or declined. (5) Ask about money spent and commitments made. (6) Record in the notes in neutral language: practice, source, medical involvement, risks noted.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Lots of people I see are trying diets or natural approaches alongside everything else. Is there anything like that going on for you?" / "Where did you first come across the alkaline idea? Is anyone guiding you with it?"
  • Watch for: Defensiveness or secrecy (suggesting the client expects disapproval or has been told to keep it from doctors); a practitioner who discourages medical contact; large or escalating payments. It is working when the client discloses freely and returns to the topic unprompted.

4.2 Exploring meaning, hopes and the explanatory model

  • Purpose / when: Once use is known. The diet often carries meanings (purity, control, hope, identity, belonging, distrust of medicine) that matter more to therapy than the food itself.
  • Steps: (1) Invite the client to explain the idea in their own words ("what happens in the body when it is too acidic?"). (2) Reflect without correcting. (3) Ask what drew them, and when: often after a diagnosis, a frightening symptom, a bad medical experience, or a loss. (4) Ask what they hope it will do and what they fear will happen if they stop. (5) Explore the emotional function: does following it soothe anxiety, structure the day, express self-care, signal belonging to a community? (6) Link to formulation: how this pattern connects to the presenting problem.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Help me understand how you see it: what is the acidity doing, and what does the diet change?" / "When you're keeping to it, how do you feel? And on a day you can't?"
  • Watch for: All-or-nothing thinking about "acid" foods; fear, guilt or contamination language; the belief system becoming the client's main source of hope in a serious illness. Working: the client can distinguish the diet's meaning (e.g. control) from its claimed physical effect and talk about both.

4.3 Eating-disorder and orthorexia screening

  • Purpose / when: Whenever the diet is strict, expanding, or accompanied by distress, weight change, or low mood; always in adolescents, people with an eating-disorder history, and people with OCD features.
  • Steps: (1) Ask about signs NEDA and Beat describe: progressively cutting out foods or food groups; eating only a narrow range of "pure" foods; hours spent thinking about food; high distress when safe foods are unavailable; guilt, anxiety or feeling unclean after "wrong" foods; judging others' eating; social and work impairment; heavy following of "healthy lifestyle" accounts. [source: NEDA; Beat] (2) Ask about physical signs Beat lists from restriction: weight loss, tiredness, feeling cold, slow recovery from illness. [source: Beat] (3) Use a validated general eating-disorder screen your service already licenses; NEDA offers a general online screening tool, and there are no orthorexia-specific clinical treatments. [source: NEDA] (4) If positive, arrange medical review (GP or physician) for physical assessment. (5) Refer for multidisciplinary care (physician, therapist, dietitian); clinicians often draw on anorexia nervosa and OCD approaches, and symptoms may meet criteria for anorexia nervosa or OSFED. [source: NEDA; Beat]
  • Medical risk (as clinical sources state): The BDA describes the alkaline diet as highly restrictive and low in protein, with a risk of contributing to malnutrition in people already nutritionally vulnerable (e.g. during cancer treatment), and of worsening poor appetite and weight loss. [source: BDA 2020] Electrolyte disturbance and refeeding syndrome are recognised risks of severe restriction and of re-nourishment after it, managed medically. [uncertain: not verified for this entry]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Has the list of foods you avoid been getting longer?" / "What happens inside you if you have to eat something that's on the 'acid' list?"
  • Watch for: Rapid weight loss, dizziness or fainting, missed periods, and food rules spreading to fluids or social life: arrange urgent medical review. Do not run graded food exposure yourself unless trained in eating-disorder treatment and working within a multidisciplinary plan.

4.4 Assessing and responding to displacement of medical care

  • Purpose / when: Whenever the client (or a family member) has a serious physical illness, particularly cancer, liver, kidney or heart disease or diabetes, and is using the diet as treatment.
  • Steps: (1) Ask directly whether the diet is being used instead of, or to delay, any recommended medical treatment. (2) Ask whether a practitioner has advised stopping doctors' care, as happened in the cases described in the Harm account. [source: San Diego County DA 2025; NBC 7 San Diego 2018] (3) Explore, without arguing, what the client fears about medical treatment (side-effects, loss of control, past mistreatment). (4) Encourage, and with consent facilitate, a conversation with the treating doctor in which the client can raise those fears and hear the realistic options and consequences of delay. (5) If the client has capacity and still declines treatment, respect the decision, keep the door open, document, and keep offering contact with the medical team and palliative or supportive care. (6) If capacity is in doubt, or the person is a child or a dependent adult, follow safeguarding procedures (4.8).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Has anyone suggested the diet could replace your treatment, or that you shouldn't tell your doctor?" / "What would it be like to take your worries about chemo straight to your oncologist, maybe with me helping you plan what to say?"
  • Watch for: Statements that tumours are "acid" to be neutralised, promises of cure without surgery, chemotherapy or radiation [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2018], or pressure to keep the regime secret. Working: the client stays in contact with the medical team and makes decisions with them.

4.5 Supporting informed, values-based decisions

  • Purpose / when: When a client is weighing starting, continuing, intensifying or stopping the diet, or choosing between it and medical advice.
  • Steps: (1) Clarify the decision in the client's words. (2) Elicit values (e.g. longevity, quality of life, autonomy, family). (3) Identify what information is missing and who can supply it (doctor, registered dietitian, pharmacist); the therapist does not supply nutritional or medical facts beyond pointing to clinical sources. (4) Help the client prepare questions for those professionals. (5) Revisit the decision after the client has the information. (6) Check for coercion: from a promoter, community or family on either side. No published decision aid specific to this diet is cited here. [uncertain: not verified]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Whatever you decide, I want it to be your decision, made with the full picture. What would you need to know to feel sure?"
  • Watch for: Decisions made under time pressure or a sales deadline; the client citing testimonials as the main evidence. Working: the client can state the trade-offs and owns the choice.

4.6 Coordinating with the doctor, dietitian or pharmacist

  • Purpose / when: When restriction, supplements, serious illness or medicines are involved.
  • Steps: (1) Explain why contact would help. (2) Obtain written consent specifying what will be shared and with whom. (3) Share observations relevant to safety (restriction pattern, weight concerns, treatment delay, supplement use) without making nutritional judgements. (4) Direct any question about supplements or medicines, including interactions, to the prescriber or pharmacist; the therapist never advises on starting, stopping or changing a medicine or supplement. (5) Agree roles and a review point; document.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'd like to let your GP know you've cut out a lot of foods, so they can check your bloods and weight. Would that be okay?"
  • Watch for: Refusal of all contact with medical professionals, especially with signs of malnutrition or serious illness: reassess risk.

4.7 Recognising financial exploitation and promoter or group pressure

  • Purpose / when: When the client is paying a practitioner, retreat or programme, buying supplements, or belongs to an online or in-person community around the diet.
  • Steps: (1) Ask about total spending and whether it is rising. (2) Ask what happens if they question the programme or miss payments. (3) Note markers documented in the Young cases: high nightly retreat fees including supplements and "therapies"; individual patients paying tens of thousands of dollars; credentials claimed that the promoter later admitted he did not hold. [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017; Gorski 2014; Times of San Diego 2017] (4) Explore the relationship with the promoter (idealisation, fear of disloyalty, isolation from doctors or family). (5) Support the client to verify credentials (e.g. a state medical board's licence look-up, as the San Diego County DA advises) [source: San Diego County DA 2025]. (6) The therapist never sells products, courses or referrals to such programmes and declares any conflict of interest. [synthesis; profession's ethics code, not verified here]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Can we add up what it's cost so far? Not to judge, just so you can see it clearly." / "What happens in the group when someone has doubts?"
  • Watch for: Debt, borrowing from family, selling assets, or being discouraged from contact with outsiders. Working: the client can look at the costs and the relationship with some distance.

4.8 Children, pregnancy and dependent or older adults

  • Purpose / when: When a parent applies the diet to a child, a pregnant client follows it, or a carer or practitioner imposes it on an older or ill adult.
  • Steps: (1) Ask whether children in the household follow the diet and whether their growth and medical care are being monitored. (2) For pregnancy, encourage the client to tell their midwife or obstetrician about the diet and any supplements. (3) Where a child is being deprived of adequate nutrition or medical care, or an older or dependent adult is persuaded to abandon medical treatment, follow local child or adult safeguarding procedures. In 2025 a California jury convicted the diet's founder of elder abuse and theft from an elder after an older woman with a life-threatening liver illness was persuaded to stop seeing her doctors. [source: San Diego County DA 2025] (4) Consider the child's own assent and voice; never name or identify minors outside safeguarding channels.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Does the rest of the family eat this way too? How are the kids getting on with it?"
  • Watch for: Faltering growth, missed medical appointments or vaccinations, a child's anxiety about food. Act on safeguarding concerns rather than exploring them indefinitely.

4.9 Health anxiety and somatic-symptom presentations

  • Purpose / when: When the diet is driven by fear of illness, preoccupation with bodily signals (e.g. repeated pH testing), or unexplained physical symptoms attributed to "acidity".
  • Steps: (1) Formulate the cycle: bodily sensation → threat interpretation ("I'm too acidic") → checking and safety behaviours (testing, stricter rules) → short-term relief → increased preoccupation. (2) Use established approaches for health anxiety and somatic symptom presentations (cognitive-behavioural formulation, reducing checking and reassurance-seeking, behavioural experiments) as set out in Domain II. (3) Avoid debating the theory; target the checking and avoidance. (4) Coordinate with the GP for appropriate medical assessment so that real symptoms are not missed. [synthesis; cross-ref Domain II]
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you test and it's 'acidic', what goes through your mind, and what do you do next?"
  • Watch for: Checking that is increasing or occupying hours a day, OCD features (overlap noted by NEDA), new physical symptoms needing medical review.

4.10 Reporting routes

  • Purpose / when: When a practitioner diagnoses or treats disease without a licence, discourages medical care, makes false health claims, or exploits a client financially; or when safeguarding thresholds are met.
  • Steps: (1) Discuss reporting with the client and seek consent, except where safeguarding law requires reporting regardless. (2) Choose the route: medical licensing board or prosecutor for unlicensed practice of medicine (the Young cases were investigated by the Medical Board of California and the San Diego County DA [source: Gorski 2014; San Diego County DA 2025]); consumer-protection and advertising regulators for false health claims (in the USA the FTC; in the UK the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards) [synthesis: routes not verified for this entry]; medicines/products regulators where supplements are concerned (FDA, MHRA, TGA, Health Canada) [synthesis]; adult or child safeguarding services; a professional body if the practitioner is registered. (3) Record what was reported, to whom, and when.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What happened to you may be something the authorities would want to know about. Would you like to think through whether to report it?"
  • Watch for: Fear of retaliation or shame; support the client through any legal process.

4.11 Aftermath: regret, grief, family conflict and financial loss

  • Purpose / when: After a client or relative has relied on the diet in place of medical care, or has lost money to a programme.
  • Steps: (1) Make space for regret and self-blame without reinforcing either. (2) Name the role of deliberate persuasion by a promoter who misrepresented credentials, where that is true. (3) Address family conflict (relatives who opposed or supported the choice). (4) Support bereavement work where a death followed. (5) Help with practical steps: financial advice, legal advice, reporting. (6) Coordinate with palliative or supportive-care teams where illness is advanced.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You made the choice you made with what you were told at the time, and some of what you were told wasn't true."
  • Watch for: Complicated grief, depression, suicidal ideation (assess using standard practice), and shame that blocks re-engagement with medical care.

5. Handling problems

  • Client will not discuss the diet or feels judged. Step back; acknowledge the right to choose; return to it through the client's own goals ("you mentioned energy: how is that going?"). [synthesis]
  • Client asks the therapist's opinion of the diet. Be honest that you are not a dietitian, that clinical bodies such as the BDA say diet does not change blood pH, and offer to help them get a dietitian's or doctor's view; do not endorse or condemn. [source: BDA 2020; synthesis]
  • Client wants the therapist to support them in replacing medical treatment. Do not collude; explain your concern clearly, keep the alliance, facilitate medical conversation (4.4), and document. If capacity is in question, follow capacity procedures. [synthesis]
  • Rupture after raising eating-disorder concerns. Acknowledge the impact, be transparent about why you raised it (specific observed signs from 4.3), and invite the client's view; offer a medical check as a neutral step. [synthesis]
  • Non-adherence to medical or eating-disorder referral. Explore barriers (fear, cost, distrust); offer to attend the first appointment with them or help prepare; reassess risk at each session. [synthesis]
  • Escalating restriction or physical deterioration. Treat as a medical risk: urgent physician review; eating-disorder services. Do not wait for a formal diagnosis, as orthorexia lacks formal criteria. [source: NEDA; Beat; synthesis]
  • Promoter or community contacts the therapist or pressures the client to leave therapy. Protect confidentiality; explore the pressure with the client; consider safeguarding and reporting (4.7, 4.10). [synthesis]
  • The therapist's own views. Strong scepticism or sympathy can distort the work; use supervision. [synthesis]
  • Overwhelm in serious illness. Slow the pace, focus on immediate decisions and support, involve palliative or psycho-oncology services (see entry 172 for integrative oncology). [synthesis]

Harm account

What was actually done

  • Who and where. Robert O. Young, author of The pH Miracle books, ran a "pH Miracle Retreat" (also reported as the "Miracle Retreat Center") at his avocado ranch in Valley Center, San Diego County, California. Patients, including people with terminal illness, stayed at the ranch. [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017 and 2018; Gorski 2014; Times of San Diego 2017]
  • How it was sold. The theory that acidity causes disease and alkalising cures it; the promise, to at least one woman with breast cancer, of a cure without surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, by "cleansing" the blood and avoiding sugars; and a presentation of Young as a scientist (his publisher still describes him as a microbiologist), although in his 2017 plea he admitted he held no post-high-school degree from an accredited school and was not a microbiologist, medical doctor, hematologist, naturopathic doctor or trained scientist. [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017, 2018; Hachette; Times of San Diego 2017] The San Diego County DA states his doctorates were bought from unaccredited correspondence schools. [source: San Diego County DA 2025]
  • What patients received. The alkaline diet, massages, colonic cleansing and intravenous infusions of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), given at the ranch; Young's lawyer said Young hired doctors and nurses to give injections. Infusions were charged individually at high prices, and stays were charged per night with supplements and "therapies" included. [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017, 2018; China Daily 2018; Times of San Diego 2017] Undercover investigators from the Medical Board of California and the DA's office were given diagnoses and sold costly treatments. [source: Gorski 2014]
  • Later case (2020–2021). Young and a co-defendant treated a 79-year-old woman with a life-threatening liver illness with an all-vegetable smoothie diet and intravenous sodium bicarbonate, and persuaded her to stop seeing her doctors. [source: San Diego County DA 2025]

How it caused harm

  • Displacement and delay of effective treatment. The central mechanism in each documented case: patients were steered away from, or delayed, medical care for serious disease. A woman with breast cancer who followed Young's advice instead of conventional treatment saw her cancer progress to stage four and spread to her bones; in 2018 a San Diego Superior Court jury awarded her about $105 million for fraud and negligence (including $15 million in punitive damages), and the judge was reported to have called Young a fraud. [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2018; China Daily 2018]
  • Deaths. The BBC reported (as summarised by Fox News) that a 27-year-old British woman with cancer paid Young more than $77,000 in 2012 and died after about three months at the ranch. [source: Fox News 2017 citing BBC] Science-Based Medicine reports other deaths of people who had followed or been treated under Young's ideas. [source: Gorski 2014] These individuals are not named here.
  • Financial harm. Nightly fees in the thousands of dollars; individual patients paying tens of thousands, one reportedly $120,000. [source: NBC 7 San Diego 2017; Gorski 2014]
  • Elder abuse. The 2025 convictions included willful abuse of an elder and theft from an elder. [source: San Diego County DA 2025]
  • Nutritional harm. Clinical dietitians warn that the diet's restrictiveness and low protein can contribute to malnutrition and worsen appetite and weight loss in people already ill. [source: BDA 2020]
  • Who was most at risk. People with serious or terminal illness seeking hope or control; older adults; people distrustful of medicine; people able to pay large sums. [synthesis from the cases above]
  • Legal outcomes. Utah: 1995 arrest, misdemeanour plea [source: Times of San Diego 2017]. California: 2014 arrest; 2016 jury conviction on two counts of practising medicine without a licence (deadlock on others, including grand theft); 2017 guilty plea; sentence of three years and eight months [source: Times of San Diego 2017; NBC 7 San Diego 2017]. 2018 civil verdict above. February 2025 jury convictions (practising medicine without a licence, theft from an elder, elder abuse); sentence of five years and eight months in May 2025. [source: San Diego County DA 2025]

Recognising it today

  • Phrases and rationales: "your blood is too acidic"; "disease is acid"; "alkalise to heal"; "cancer can't survive in an alkaline body"; tumours as the body's protection against acid [source: Gorski 2014]; blood pH as "the single most important health measurement" [source: Hachette]; reliance on urine-pH testing, which does not reflect blood pH [source: BDA 2020].
  • Practice red flags: a practitioner who diagnoses disease (including by live or darkfield blood analysis, see entry 181) and treats it with diet, infusions or colonics; advice to stop or delay doctors' treatment; residential retreats with nightly fees bundling supplements and "therapies"; intravenous "alkalising" or baking-soda infusions outside medical care; titles such as "Dr", "microbiologist" or "naturopath" that do not match a verifiable licence; testimonials as evidence. [synthesis from sources above]
  • How legitimate care differs: registered dietitians give individualised nutrition advice as part of medical care and do not claim to change blood pH or cure cancer; intravenous treatments are given only within licensed medical care; integrative oncology services offer complementary approaches alongside, never instead of, standard treatment (entry 172). [source: BDA 2020; synthesis]

What to do instead and how to help those harmed

  • Instead: nutrition advice from a registered dietitian; for people with cancer, dietetic support within the oncology team; for anxiety about treatment, psycho-oncology and palliative or supportive care. [source: BDA 2020; synthesis]
  • Assessment of affected clients: screen for depression, complicated grief, trauma symptoms, shame and self-blame, financial distress, eating-disorder patterns (4.3) and ongoing medical disengagement; assess suicide risk using standard practice. [synthesis]
  • Treatment: re-engagement with medical care at the client's pace; grief and regret work (4.11); family work where relatives disagree; addressing distrust of medicine without dismissing past bad experiences. [synthesis]
  • Ethical, reporting and legal duties: safeguarding referral where children or dependent or older adults are harmed; supporting reports to the medical board or prosecutor for unlicensed practice, and to consumer or advertising regulators for false claims (4.10); helping clients verify a practitioner's licence on the state medical board's database, as the San Diego County DA advises; signposting to legal advice for civil claims. [source: San Diego County DA 2025; synthesis]

Sources

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