Introducing Season Eight of Chameleon: Dr. Miracle
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Let me take you back to a time before Gwyneth Paltrow hawked bone broth and jade eggs. Back to the mid-2000s, when exercise classes were on DVD, when people followed the Atkins diet or the South Beach diet to lose weight.

And there was another one that was really big back then, a miracle diet that would not only slim your waist, but make your body reject diseases. Back to the garden, back to the greens, back to God's butter, avocado. It was called the alkaline diet, and tons of celebrities toyed with it. Kate Hudson, Victoria Beckham, Kelly Ripa, even the Queen of Goop, Gwyneth herself.

It involved drinking lots of green juice and not very much else. I dropped weight like crazy, but I wasn't dropping weight where I look haggard like people do when they're on a diet. The alkaline lifestyle was pioneered by Dr. Robert Young. Breakfast should start out with a fresh juice. But Robert Young didn't just promise weight loss. He promised hope. He promised a miracle cure.

Sick people, especially cancer patients desperate for that hope, flocked to Dr. Young. He called it the new biology. He had a way of making you feel special and like you were on this great crusade. He just convinced her, stay the course, follow my protocol, it works, I've cured cancer. Like, she was desperate. She wanted to feel better.

Robert Young's followers called themselves Alcalarians. I just felt like a father feeling towards him and Jesus Christ. That's pretty powerful. They followed his protocol even when it made them feel sicker. Her stomach was so distended and I begged and pleaded with her to stop doing what she was doing. And when patients' illnesses got worse, Robert Young convinced them they were actually getting better.

She had a lump on her chest. It was the size of a golf ball and it was coming out, kind of like supporting what he was saying, that it can't live in her body. Dr. Miracle isn't just about a diet. It's about what happens when you follow the wrong guru. It's about how we choose to treat our illnesses at a time when health care is unaffordable and so many people doubt science.

And it's about the search for truth when everything goes horribly awry. A good con man is an abrasive. He's a likable guy. He's telling them what they want to hear. And he's saying it with conviction. There are losers. There are people that owe us money. My mom's sucking on that bottle of greens and I took it and I fucking threw it at that woman. And then I said, here's your check. Give me my mother.

Everyone's dying. Why is everyone dying? From Campside Media, Dorothy Street Pictures, and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Dr. Miracle. Coming July 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.