I hear from lots of people every day who are concerned about how their diet is affecting their health.

They need answers based on facts, in other words, from the peer-reviewed medical literature, and that is what I'm here for.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today we take a deep dive into drugs and supplements that don't work as

advertised and we start with a deceptive supplement called Prevagen. Over the past 20 years or so big farm has invested more than a half trillion dollars into dementia treatment research, but so far to little avail.

In light of this, many have turned to supplements. An AARP Commission survey

found that 36% of those 74 years and older take a supplement for brain health to the tune of billions

of dollars a year. The most commonly marketed

brain supplement was one I'd frankly never heard of before, Prevagen. Prevagen contains a protein derived

from a luminescent jellyfish the company claims has been clinically shown to improve memory.

According to the company website, a landmark double-blind and placebo-control trial demonstrated Previggen

improve short-term memory learning and delayed recall over 90 days.

But when you actually pull up the study,

not let did Previggen fail to improve memory, learning, or recall over placebo, it failed to show a significant improvement in any of the nine measured cognitive tasks tested.

As an inquiry to Previgent published by the Center for Science and the Public

Interest was titled, How Can this Memory Supplement Flunk its one trial and still be advertised

as effective?

And not just as effective, but the number one pharmacist recommended

brand. Considering the lack of sound clinical evidence, how is that possible? Presumably,

they're just as blitzed with the same kind of advertising as everyone else.

It's no surprise the supplement didn't do anything since the company's own study showed

...