Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
Video Link :
https://youtu.be/_QGPxlx0oOY
August 31, 2025
Story at-a-glance
· “The Big Secret”
documentary reveals how the U.S. healthcare system was reshaped by corporate
and pharmaceutical forces, replacing natural healing with a drug-centered,
profit-driven medical monopoly
· The shift began with the Flexner Report, backed by
Carnegie and Rockefeller interests, which redefined medical legitimacy and
opened the door to corporate control over healthcare
· Modern medicine has wrongly vilified cholesterol,
leading to widespread statin use that undermines hormone health, cognitive
function, and metabolic resilience
· Industrial agriculture,
glyphosate, and processed foods strip essential minerals from the food supply. This has led to widespread nutritional deficiency
and chronic disease across generations
· The real “big secret” is that health restores
itself once you eliminate what disrupts it and provide the inputs it’s always
required
In the modern era of medicine, where innovation is
often equated with progress, many people assume that the dominant healthcare
model in the United States reflects the best that science has to offer. Yet despite this, chronic
illness continues to rise, and more Americans than ever rely on daily
medication to maintain a semblance of health.
What part of
this equation remains unresolved, and what has the system failed to account
for? The documentary above, “The Big Secret,”1 answers this question
by exploring the deeper forces shaping American healthcare and invites you to
reconsider many of the assumptions you’ve long accepted without question.
Through
interviews with physicians, researchers, and health advocates, it follows the
trail of influence that has quietly determined how doctors are trained, how
treatments are chosen, how the foundations of care were built, and how those
foundations continue to shape health outcomes today.
The Making of a Medical Monopoly
For most of history, healing was guided by direct
observation, traditional wisdom, and a blend of natural therapies drawn from
plants, minerals, and food. That changed at the turn of the 20th century, when
industrial and financial interests began reshaping medicine into a centralized,
pharmaceutical-first system. What emerged was a model built not around patient
health, but around patentable products, standardized protocols, and
institutional control.2
•The Flexner Report laid the groundwork
for corporate control — The push began
with the Carnegie Foundation, which commissioned educator Abraham Flexner in
1908 to conduct a sweeping review of American medical schools. Though Flexner
had no medical training, he visited every school in the country and produced a
report that would become the blueprint for what would count as “real” medicine
in the United States.
•The report sidelined entire healing
systems that didn’t conform — The
Flexner Report, published in 1910, called for stricter admissions, standardized
training, and a closer alignment with laboratory science. While framed as a
push for quality, the reform wiped out much of the therapeutic diversity that
once defined American medicine.
At the time, schools taught homeopathy,
naturopathy, herbalism, nutritional therapy, and other empirical,
non-drug-based approaches. The Flexner Report dismissed them not for poor
outcomes, but for failing to fit the narrow research model promoted by
industrial interests. Its adoption signaled the collapse of a pluralistic
system and the rise of a pharmaceutical-centered medical order.
•Rockefeller interests steered medical
education toward patented treatments — The
Rockefeller Foundation, already heavily invested in the growing pharmaceutical
industry, saw the report as a perfect opportunity. Using their vast financial
resources, the Rockefeller Foundation began offering grants to medical schools,
but only those that adopted the Flexner model and rejected alternative
approaches.
They began to steer the entire medical education
system toward a model that favored patented drug treatments over nutritional or
holistic care. Schools that taught homeopathy, naturopathy, or nutrition were
denied funding and accreditation. With the inability to compete financially,
over half of them eventually closed.
•The American Medical Association (AMA)
was installed as the official gatekeeper — Through
strategic lobbying and financial backing, the Rockefeller Foundation pushed for
laws that granted regulatory authority to the AMA, a private membership
organization that previously held no official power.
This gave AMA the ability to accredit medical
schools and oversee licensure standards at the state level. With this new
authority, it became the gatekeeper of what would be considered legitimate
medicine in the United States. As explained in the documentary:
“Unfortunately,
the AMA was also heavily influenced by the Rockefeller Foundation …
Consequently, the AMA promoted allopathic medicine to the point that it became
the only approved form of medicine taught in the U.S. Consequently, doctors
began prescribing the Rockefeller Foundation's patented medicines to manage,
not cure, illnesses and diseases.”3
•Doctors are
legally incentivized to follow pharmaceutical protocols — If a doctor
recommends a natural or unconventional treatment and a patient suffers an
adverse outcome, they face the threat of malpractice suits and professional
sanctions. But if the same doctor prescribes an approved pharmaceutical, no
matter how harmful or ineffective, it is legally defensible.
Because these
drugs are the “standard of care,” doctors are protected by liability insurance
and institutional guidelines. This has created a climate where risk-avoidance
overrides innovation, and protocol compliance replaces independent thinking.
•Even journals
were captured by industry — Scientific journals, increasingly reliant on
drug company advertising and sponsorship, skewed publication in favor of
products with commercial potential. Research that challenged dominant drug
narratives was buried, while favorable studies, regardless of quality, were
widely promoted.
•Alternative
approaches are excluded by insurance and medical boards — Insurance systems are
structured to reimburse only AMA-approved treatments, which primarily include
drugs, surgeries, and diagnostic tests. Nutritional therapy, detoxification,
and lifestyle-based interventions are often denied coverage, even if they
outperform drugs in safety or efficacy.
•Educational
systems suppress therapeutic diversity — Medical students are
rarely taught about prevention, nutrition, or holistic strategies. Their
training is shaped by pharmaceutical models that equate symptom suppression
with care. This tunnel vision is the predictable outcome of a system engineered
to reward profitable treatments, not those that restore autonomy or health.
This healthcare
structure remains intact today. And the deeper you look at it, the clearer it
becomes that the purpose of this system was never to eliminate disease, but to
build a permanent, profitable industry around managing it.
Rethinking Cholesterol,
Heart Disease, and Cognitive Decline
Modern medicine
has framed cholesterol as a primary threat to health. From routine checkups to
national guidelines, patients are taught to fear high numbers and suppress them
with medication. Doctors reinforce this view through routine statin
prescriptions, and entire treatment protocols revolve around reducing cholesterol
to prevent heart disease. But this narrative was built more on commercial
interest than biological truth.
•Cholesterol is
actually essential for cellular and neurological function — Cholesterol plays a
structural and metabolic role in every cell. It stabilizes cell membranes,
regulates permeability, and serves as a building block for steroid hormones,
including estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol. Your body also uses cholesterol
to synthesize vitamin D and produce bile acids necessary for digestion.4
Nowhere is its
importance more evident than in the brain, which houses nearly a quarter of
your body’s total cholesterol despite accounting for just a few percent of its
mass. Neurons depend on cholesterol for synapse formation and communication.
Without it, cognitive function collapses.
•Suppressing
cholesterol introduces metabolic instability — Over time, the
campaign to lower cholesterol has driven levels below what’s needed for optimal
function. Dr. Peter Glidden, a naturopathic doctor featured in the documentary,
explained:
“Low
cholesterol levels are associated with an increased chance of death, an
increased chance of cancer, high percentage of birth defects, peripheral
neuropathy, short temper and aggressive behavior, kidney failure, and
dementia.”5
•Statins don’t
prevent heart attacks and undermine key systems — Statins are a class
of drugs that inhibit HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme in the liver involved in
cholesterol synthesis. By blocking this enzyme, statins lower total and LDL
cholesterol levels, which has led to their widespread use as a preventive
measure for cardiovascular disease. Yet the evidence for their benefit is
limited.
For people
without a prior history of heart disease, statins offer little to no reduction
in mortality or heart attack risk. Even in higher-risk populations, the
absolute benefit is small, and often eclipsed by the drugs’ side effects, which
include muscle pain, fatigue, liver dysfunction, memory loss, mood disruption,
and reduced hormone levels, among others.
•Cholesterol thresholds were redefined
to expand drug markets — Guidelines for
what constitutes “high cholesterol” have steadily shifted. Numbers once considered
normal are now treated as risky, not because of new evidence but due to
committee decisions shaped by pharmaceutical advisors. Each downward revision
expands the pool of statin candidates and the market. The redefinition of
normal into pathological has been one of the most profitable moves in modern
medicine.
•The rise in
Alzheimer’s parallels low-fat, low-cholesterol policies — Alzheimer’s disease,
now one of the leading causes of death in older adults, was virtually unheard
of before 1940. Since the 1980s, its incidence has
soared in tandem with low-fat dietary guidelines and widespread statin use.
Experts interviewed in the film describe
Alzheimer’s as a manmade epidemic triggered by the chronic starvation of the
brain’s most essential lipid, not an inevitable consequence of aging. These trends
suggest the disturbing possibility that modern policies intended to protect the
brain have helped dismantle it instead.
•Overlooked strategies point to broader
metabolic dysfunction — For example,
Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., an expert in natural medicine, noted that regular
blood donation significantly lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke, likely
by reducing iron overload and oxidative stress. These outcomes surpass what
statins offer, yet they’re rarely promoted because they can’t be patented or monetized.
•Glyphosate
could be the real driver behind lipid disruptions — While cholesterol has
been vilified, the real metabolic threat may lie elsewhere. The film notes a
tight correlation between glyphosate exposure through GMO corn and soy and
rising LDL levels. Cholesterol levels rise not because of saturated fat or
eggs, but as a biological response to environmental toxins. Meanwhile, heart
attack trends don’t track with cholesterol levels at all, calling into question
the entire lipid hypothesis.
For a deeper
look at how to restore healthy cholesterol levels without pharmaceuticals,
check out “Lower Cholesterol, Naturally and Safely — No Statins Required.”
How Did Nutritional Collapse Engineer the Rise of
Chronic Disease?
The modern health crisis was manufactured through a
long sequence of changes to how food is grown, processed, and delivered. The
documentary traces how the food system has been reshaped by political and
corporate forces, stripping food of its essential nutrients, altering its
biochemical nature, and creating a population dependent on a system that no
longer feeds the body what it needs to stay well.
•Industrial agriculture severed the
soil-nutrition link — Diverse, biologically active
topsoil was flattened under heavy machinery and drenched in synthetic
fertilizer. Crops were bred for speed, size, and uniformity, not nutrient
density. These result in a food supply that looks the same but no longer
delivers the same materials your body requires to function.
•The body cannot make minerals, and
neither can plants — Among the most essential of the
missing inputs in food today are minerals, which come from soil and are only
absorbed when microbial life converts them into bioavailable forms. When those microbes are
destroyed, plants grow, but their nutritional core is hollow.
According to
the film, between 1950 and 1999, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) showed significant reductions in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron,
riboflavin, and vitamin C in 43 common crops. The losses have continued since
and have significantly affected human health.
“The more deficient we are, the sicker
we get. And this is why everybody's getting sicker. It's because of mineral
deficiencies, which have been accelerated by agribusiness,” said Dr. Peter Glidden, a holistic health
expert.
•Government policy made the problem
worse — When industrial farming began to
exhaust the topsoil, the response was not ecological restoration but chemical
replacement. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium were added back to grow large,
fast-yielding plants. But those were only three of the more than 60 essential
minerals required for human health.
To make food cheaper and more shelf-stable, it was
refined, extruded, sweetened, and preserved. Nutrients were stripped, fats were
hydrogenated, and flavor was recreated through additives. What the population
consumed became a simulation of food — high in calories, low in substance. And
as people became sicker, they were told to eat less and move more, rather than to
investigate what had been taken away.
•This same period saw the rise of
high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) — As
corn subsidies pushed down the cost of raw material, food companies replaced
traditional sugars with this lab-made sweetener that bypasses normal insulin
regulation and floods the liver with unbuffered fructose. This resulted in fat
buildup, mitochondrial stress, and fatty liver disease. HFCS also became a
primary driver of metabolic syndrome.
•Glyphosate has turned our food into
slow poison — Introduced as a weed killer for
genetically modified (GM) crops, glyphosate acts as a mineral chelator and
microbial toxin. As explained by Raymond Francis, a chemist and registered consultant:
“Glyphosate is the main component of
weed killers like Roundup. It is a very toxic chemical that has already been
linked to irreversible metabolic damage, infertility, obesity, learning
disabilities and birth defects.
In 2009, American farmers sprayed 57
million pounds of glyphosate on food crops, mainly on genetically engineered
corn and soy crops. U.S. farmers are now using so much glyphosate that
researchers are finding it in the rain, in the air, in the streams, and our
water supplies.”6
•Scientific warnings were buried and
regulators looked away — Researchers who
warned about glyphosate faced censorship, funding loss, and legal threats. Regulators relied on
industry studies and approved its use without long-term safety data. As with
pharmaceuticals, profit signaled safety. This is how GMO crops designed for
glyphosate tolerance quietly flooded the food supply without public awareness
or consent.
To understand how corporate interests like Big
Tobacco helped design the modern food system, read “The Hidden History of Our Modern
Food System — How Big Tobacco Shaped What We Eat.”
What Is Fluoridation — And Why Is It Still Used in
Our Water Supply?
Fluoride is added to drinking water to purportedly
reduce cavities across the population. This narrative has led most
people to assume it’s both safe and beneficial. But
did you know the chemical that enters most municipal water systems is not even
the pharmaceutical-grade sodium fluoride used in controlled clinical settings?7
•Industrial waste rebranded as a public
health tool — Hexafluorosilicic acid is
classified as hazardous waste at its point of origin. If disposed of
conventionally, it would require costly toxic waste management. Instead, it’s
rerouted into the water supply, rebranded as a health intervention, and
distributed into homes, schools, and hospitals. According to the film:
“Fluoridation
of the drinking water supply is done to get rid of the toxic waste
hexafluorosilicic acid from the smokestack scrubbers of aluminum and fertilizer
factories. This practice has caused cancer and brain damage for almost 50
years.
The aluminum
and fertilizer industries would have to pay a fortune to dispose of the
hexafluorosilicic acid if it were not for the municipal water fluoridation …
Dr. Dean Burk of the National Cancer Institute said fluoridation is a form of
public mass murder, and he also said, ‘In point of fact, fluoride causes more
human cancer death and causes it faster than any other chemical.’”8
•Linked to neurotoxicity and reduced IQ
in children — Dozens of studies, including
large meta-analyses, show consistent associations between fluoridated water and
lower childhood IQ. The most vulnerable window is during prenatal and
early-life development, when the blood-brain barrier is immature and the brain
is highly sensitive to chemical interference.9,10
•Disrupts thyroid function, especially
where iodine is low — Fluoride competes with iodine in
the thyroid gland, impairing hormone production. Subclinical hypothyroidism in
children, marked by slowed growth, mood changes, and altered development,
emerges without diagnosis. In adults, long-term thyroid suppression contributes
to fatigue, weight gain, and reproductive dysfunction.11
•Shielded by
professional alliances and industry influence — The American Dental
Association (ADA) remains one of fluoridation’s most active defenders, citing
historical dental benefits while downplaying toxicological risks. But the ADA
receives financial support from chemical industry stakeholders, and investigations
have revealed conflicts of interest and selective data use.
•Delivered
without consent, dose control, or monitoring — Fluoride exposure is
not prescribed, not adjusted for age or body weight, and not subject to
individual opt-out. Infants, pregnant women, and the medically vulnerable are
exposed daily, with no system in place to track cumulative impact. Unlike
pharmaceuticals, which require informed consent, fluoridation happens
passively; one dose fits all.
The promise of public health is to protect, not
expose. And yet fluoride remains in the water, shaping neurodevelopment,
hormone balance, and metabolic health across generations, with no informed
consent and no end in sight. To see how I’ve challenged this practice directly,
read “My Open Letter to the American
Dental Association.”
Cancer — A Preventable Crisis Ignored by Modern
Medicine
Cancer rates keep rising, despite decades of
medical advances. The documentary implicates glucose and promotes the ketogenic diet as a solution. But while it rightly exposes
the failures of the modern cancer model, it miscasts glucose as the enemy. In
my view, the real issue isn’t sugar — it’s mitochondrial damage caused by fat
overload and oxidative stress.12
•Progress in
cancer outcomes remains elusive — Despite hundreds of billions of dollars
poured into research, the cancer death rate has barely improved. Patients still
endure the same chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery protocols developed
decades ago, often with harsh side effects and poor long-term results.
The documentary
argues this stagnation isn’t due to a lack of knowledge. It’s the product of a
medical model that deliberately obscures workable, non-pharmaceutical solutions
to protect the pharmaceutical status quo.
•The role of
glucose in cancer — The film emphasizes that cancer’s metabolic
engine is glucose-dependent, noting that malignant cells burn through sugar at
nearly 200 times the rate of normal tissue. This observation has shaped
alternative strategies aimed at restricting glucose to slow cancer growth.
However, this
framing overlooks an important nuance — glucose is not inherently carcinogenic,
and sugar metabolism itself is not the root cause of cancer. In fact, glucose
is the most efficient fuel for mitochondrial ATP production per oxygen molecule
and plays an essential role in maintaining redox balance, nuclear integrity,
and antioxidant defenses.
•The ketogenic
diet restricts glucose, but may come at a cost — Ketogenic diets
induce a metabolic state called ketosis, which lowers insulin and blood glucose
while raising ketone levels. The documentary promotes this shift as a way to
exploit cancer’s rigid metabolism and starve tumors of fuel.
Some early
studies have shown promise in stabilizing aggressive cancers through dietary
ketosis, and fasting can mimic similar effects short-term. However, long-term ketosis is not without risk, and
it is not universally beneficial. Ketogenic metabolism relies on beta-oxidation and
increased fat intake, which raises mitochondrial oxidative stress, reduces
electron transport efficiency, and impair metabolic flexibility.
Clinical data
show that long-term ketogenic diets increase LDL cholesterol, accelerate muscle
loss, and raise the risk of cardiovascular mortality. These tradeoffs may not
be justified in individuals whose mitochondria are capable of oxidizing glucose
cleanly and efficiently through restored metabolic pathways.13
•Metabolic
dysfunction stems from fat overload, not carbohydrate excess — The core issue is not
that your body is using glucose. It’s because your mitochondria can’t use it
properly. One overlooked cause is lipid-induced insulin resistance, which
occurs when excess fat blocks glucose uptake via the Randle cycle.
When fat
oxidation dominates, glucose metabolism is suppressed, lactate accumulates, and
cells shift toward anaerobic pathways. These are hallmarks of the cancer
phenotype. Rather than cutting glucose, restoring glucose utilization by
reducing fat intake and supporting mitochondrial repair may be the more biologically
sound solution.
•A real
solution supports, not starves, glucose metabolism — Instead of chronic
carb restriction, the path forward lies in restoring the cell’s ability to use
glucose well. This includes improving mitochondrial membrane composition, restoring
enzyme function, reducing linoleic acid, and supporting nutrient cofactors required for
clean glucose combustion. In this view, glucose isn’t a toxin but a vital
energy substrate that’s being poorly handled due to upstream damage.
For a deeper
look at how glucose fuels cellular resilience and why it deserves to be
reclaimed, not restricted, read “Glucose — The Ideal Fuel for Your Cells.”
The Big Secret — Health Was Always in Your Hands
The most
striking message in “The Big Secret” isn’t about hidden toxins or corrupt
institutions. It’s about power, specifically the biological power each person
carries. Despite decades of dependency, censorship, and regulatory control, the
most potent force in medicine remains your body’s ability to repair, regulate,
and recover. The film makes clear that the system
didn’t just overlook this truth. It was designed to suppress it.
•The health system was engineered to
manage symptoms, not restore function — Chronic
disease is framed as inevitable and treatment means lifelong medication.
Nutrient-poor food is normalized, metabolic poisons like fluoride are defended,
and biological dysfunction is treated as fate. But this framing serves
institutions, not individuals. Real healing begins not with more control, but
with fewer interferences and the return of what your body needs to thrive.
•The root inputs of health are simple,
unprofitable, and biologically potent — Achieving
optimal health doesn’t begin with a pill. It starts with minerals, real food,
movement, metabolic renewal, clean water, light, rest, and community. These
fundamentals don’t generate recurring revenue, but they recalibrate biology at
the source, reversing patterns that pharmaceuticals only manage.
•Censorship has silenced the strategies
that work — The film documents how clinicians
who promote natural healing are often discredited, censored, or removed.
Therapies that bypass pharmaceutical dependence are dismissed not because they
threaten the medical business model. Reclaiming your health means seeking out
what the system tries hardest to hide.
•Health is not fragile, and it’s not
inherited from institutions — You
are not broken by default. Health isn’t a privilege tied to income, insurance,
or expert access. It’s something you build through
choices once you understand how the system works, and more importantly, how to
step outside of it.
The film’s final warning is also its core truth —
the greatest threat to the medical industry isn’t a competitor. It’s the
informed individual, someone who no longer waits to be “saved,” no longer
accepts decline as normal, and no longer forgets that biology was built for
resilience.
Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs) About Today’s Medical Myths and Hidden Health Truths
Q: Do statins actually
prevent heart attacks?
A: For people without prior
cardiovascular disease, statins offer little to no benefit in preventing heart
attacks. They lower cholesterol levels but come with significant side effects,
including muscle pain, memory loss, liver dysfunction, and CoQ10 depletion. In
many cases, lifestyle changes offer more protection with fewer risks.
Q: Why are alternative
treatments discouraged in mainstream medicine?
A: Alternative and natural
treatments are often excluded from insurance coverage and medical education
because they can’t be patented or monetized. Doctors face legal and financial
disincentives for recommending anything outside of pharmaceutical protocols,
even when safer or more effective options exist.
Q: How does medical training shape the way
doctors treat disease?
A: Most medical schools focus
heavily on pharmaceuticals, surgery, and disease management, not prevention,
nutrition, or root-cause treatment. Over time, this has created a system where
doctors are exceptionally skilled at stabilizing symptoms but underequipped to
address root causes.
Q: Why is chronic
disease so common today?
A: Chronic diseases like
cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are rising due to a combination of
nutrient-depleted food, chemical exposure, pharmaceutical overuse, and a
healthcare model that treats symptoms rather than causes. Poor soil quality,
processed diets, environmental toxins, and sedentary lifestyles also contribute
to systemic breakdown.
Q: What’s the biggest health myth today?
A: One
of the biggest myths is that chronic disease is inevitable and must be managed
with lifelong drugs. In reality, many diseases are rooted in reversible
dysfunctions caused by environmental and dietary factors. Health isn’t
something granted by institutions. It’s something rebuilt by removing
interference and restoring what your body truly needs.
Sources and References
·
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 YouTube, “The
Big Secret - Full Medical Documentary” January 31, 2022
·
4 StatPearls
[Internet], Biochemistry, Cholesterol
·
9 Public Health Volume 219, June 2023,
Pages 73-84
·
10 NTP NIEHS, Fluoride Exposure:
Neurodevelopment and Cognition
·
11 Environmental Research Volume 242, 1 February 2024, 117759
·
13 Current Problems in Cardiology Volume 49, Issue 3, March 2024, 102402
