New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady defended Alex Guerrero, the man he said is responsible for his success and longevity in the NFL, after a scathing Boston magazine report called Guerrero “a glorified snake-oil salesman.”
Brady, who has defied age and logic since hurting his knee in 2008, and Guerrero are also business partners in TB12, an enterprise that the quarterback hopes to expand when his playing days are over. Given that he is putting up terrific numbers so far this season at the age of 38, who knows when that will be? But Guerrero is more than a business partner; the New York Times described him as Brady’s “spiritual guide, counselor, pal, nutrition adviser, trainer, massage therapist and family member.”
According to the Boston magazine story, Guerrero is also a charlatan who has falsely claimed to be a doctor and said that his former Supreme Greens products cure cancer, arthritis, heart disease and diabetes. “This is just out and out quackery,” Barrie Cassileth, founder of the Integrative Medicine Service at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told Boston magazine. Cassileth helped Federal Trade Commission investigate Supreme Greens. In 2005, the FTC announced a settlement with Guerrero.
And he has drawn attention again for claiming that a product called NeuroSafe — endorsed with Brady’s TB12 logo on its label — was a “seatbelt for the brain.” On Monday, Brady was still standing by the man who has been his business partner since 2013. The FTC has yet to bring any action against Guerrero.
“It’s a privilege to work with him, it really is,” Brady said. “I wouldn’t be playing today if it wasn’t for what he’s been able to accomplish with me and the process that I’ve gone through and learning how to take care of myself. Like I said, so much of it is about being proactive. It’s not waiting to get sick. It’s not waiting to get injured. Lifestyle choices are very important to your health and wellness.”
Brady went on to explain how he thinks the food industry cuts athletes’ competitive lives short.
“When you think about nutritional supplements, you think about other types of training methods and training techniques. I think that’s a great thing,” he said. “I think when you talk about a green supplement — it’s vegetables. It’s eating better. So much of my diet is based on an acid-alkaline principle, which to me does reduce inflammation in my body. When you run around and take hits all day for a living, that’s a really positive thing for me. I would love to encourage all my teammates to eat the best way they possibly can, to have high school athletes [do the same].
“That’s not the way our food system in America is set up. It’s very different. They have a food pyramid. I disagree with that. I disagree with a lot of things that people tell you to do. You’ll probably go out and drink Coca-Cola and think, ‘€˜Oh yeah, that’s no problem.’ Why? Because they pay lots of money for advertisements to think that you should drink Coca-Cola for a living? No, I totally disagree with that. And when people do that, I think that’s quackery. And the fact that they can sell that to kids? I mean, that’s poison for kids. But they keep doing it. And obviously you guys may not have a comment on that because maybe that’s what your belief system is. So you do whatever you want. You live the life you want.
“Like I said, what I’m trying to provide for athletes and for people and all the clients that we have that come in, is a different way of thinking, a different way of methods. You need to be outside the box, you need to think differently if you want to sustain what for me is my peak performance, the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day. And I learned that a long time ago.”