NEED TO KNOW
A new docuseries reveals details about disgraced ‘doctor’ Robert O. Young, who authored “The pH Miracle” book series in the 2000s. He was found guilty in 2025 of treating an elderly women suffering from liver disease without a medical license.
In an exclusive clip shared with PEOPLE from the premiere episode of ID’s latest installment of The Curious Case Of… docuseries (The Curious Case Of… Death by Detox?), Jane Bodily, whose sister-in-law Tracie Cole sought Young’s treatment after being diagnosed with stage four cancer, talks about what it was like on Young’s California ranch.
Upon arrival, patients would start his prescribed regimen, which claimed, “through respiration, defecation, urination and perspiration that you can eliminate the toxins out of your body.”
While in his care, patients would be given treatments that included colonics, lymph massages, green juices and alkaline water, Bodily explains, adding that the combination would lead to people getting “really, really sick” — including her sister-in-law. (Bodily says her sister died in October of 2012, 14 months after being diagnosed with cancer and shortly after leaving the ranch.)
In a 2025 prison interview included in the documentary, Young defends his treatments and denies making anyone sick or discouraging his patients from seeing their doctors.
Young’s pH Miracle diet, which he wrote about in several books, proposed the idea that “cancer and other life-threatening illnesses can be treated with an all-vegetable smoothie diet and other treatments, including intravenous infusions of sodium bicarbonate — commonly known as baking soda, to ‘alkalinize’ the body,” a statement from the San Diego District Attorney’s office explained after Young was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison in May 2025.
Investigation Discovery
Young, who grew up as a Mormon in Utah, had previously been convicted for practicing medicine without proper credentials, once in 1996 and once in 2016, FOX 5/KUSI reported.
“It is unconscionable that this defendant continued to treat patients for serious illnesses when he had twice been convicted of practicing medicine without a license and has nothing more than a high school education and purchased ‘degrees’ from unaccredited correspondence schools,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said in the statement of Young, who authored his books with the title of “PhD.” “His fraudulent treatments did not address the serious illnesses of his patients, putting them at serious risk.”
And while Young pushed the diet on his patients, Bodily claims he didn’t follow it himself.
After asking to work in the kitchen to help offset the rising bill for her sister’s stay, Bodily says she discovered a separate refrigerator in the kitchen that housed Young’s “secret stash.”
Investigation Discovery
“When you go into the kitchen there was four fridges there, and the fourth fridge was where he stored his secret stash of his eclairs and donuts and sandwiches,” she explains in the clip. “He would buy sandwiches and eat them later in the day when we were kind of all settling.”
“Maybe he feels like he doesn’t need it, but if he truly believes that these green drinks and whatever else will keep the body healthy, he should not have at least the processed foods and the sweets anywhere near his house, right?,” legal expert Beth Karas adds. “I mean, he’s kind of being two-faced, right? He’s being hypocritical here.”
The Curious Case Of… Death by Detox? premieres Jan. 12 at 10 p.m. ET, on ID, with new episodes airing weekly. Episodes will be available to stream on HBO Max.
