Finding a Bredesen Protocol Practitioner in the UK

If you are looking for someone in the UK who works with the Bredesen Protocol, there are only a handful of us, the training behind the name varies more than most people expect, and nobody here publishes outcome data that would let you compare one practice against another. This page sets out how to find a practitioner, what to check, and what it costs.

I am a GMC-registered doctor. I still work at consultant level in an NHS hospital and I have completed Apollo Health’s training in the protocol. I also have a commercial interest in you choosing this kind of care, so read the section on evidence before you read anything else.

Where UK practitioners are listed

Apollo Health, the company Dr Dale Bredesen founded, maintains a practitioner locator of clinicians who have completed its training. That is the only central list there is, and I am on it. The public version shows how many practitioners of each type work in an area - doctors, nutritionists, health coaches - but not their names. Names and contact details are shown to Apollo Health members in their dashboard, or you can ask Apollo Health directly.

The locator tells you who has done the course and their broad professional type. It does not tell you whether they can prescribe, or whether they can recognise a presentation that needs a neurologist rather than a protocol. In the UK those differences matter more than the training itself, because the people offering the protocol here include doctors, nutritional therapists and health coaches, and none of those titles except ‘doctor’ is legally protected.

So the locator is a starting point, not an answer. Check registration separately. A doctor appears on the GMC register, which is public and takes about two minutes to search. My number is 4419909.

What ‘certified’ does and does not mean

Apollo Health runs more than one level of training, and the terms get used loosely in marketing. What matters clinically is less the badge and more these three things.

Who orders and interprets the workup. The assessment involves a wide set of blood markers, ApoE genotyping, and depending on the picture, imaging, sleep studies and tests for chronic infection or toxic exposure. Someone has to be licensed to order those, competent to interpret them, and accountable if they are read wrongly.

Who can prescribe. A good deal of what helps in cognitive decline is prescribable: treating sleep apnoea, correcting thyroid disease, managing blood pressure and diabetes properly, reviewing drugs that worsen cognition. A practitioner who cannot prescribe has to refer for each of those.

Who decides it is not this. Some people who come to me for the protocol turn out to have something else, including conditions that need urgent specialist referral. Recognising that is a medical skill, and it is the part of the job I would be least comfortable delegating.

What to ask before you commit

I have set out the questions I would ask of me, or of anyone else, in the early Alzheimer’s root-cause workup guide. They cover registration, training, who interprets the results, how progress is measured, how the practitioner works with your GP and memory clinic, and what testing will cost. I would rather you asked all seven than booked on the strength of a website.

One of them is worth repeating here. If anyone promises to reverse your Alzheimer’s disease, treat that as a reason to walk away. UK advertising rules exist precisely because that promise gets made, and it is not one anybody can honestly make.

What it costs in the UK

There is no NHS funding for this, and no UK private medical insurer I am aware of covers it, so it is self-funded. My own fees are on the fees page in full. Across UK practices the consultation element generally runs from several hundred to a few thousand pounds for the initial assessment, depending on length and on who is seeing you.

Testing is usually the larger cost and it varies considerably with what is clinically indicated. Anyone should give you a written estimate before ordering anything. If a practice will not, that tells you something.

Budget for the programme rather than the first appointment. This is a long piece of work, and the changes that make the difference are the ones sustained over months and years.

How it sits alongside NHS care

It runs alongside, not instead. If you have a diagnosis, you should keep your memory clinic appointments. If you do not have one and your symptoms warrant it, you should be referred.

I write to patients’ GPs with their consent, and I refer on when something turns up that needs specialist assessment. A practitioner who works in isolation from your NHS team is a practitioner who cannot act on what your NHS team knows.

Being straight about the evidence

The published evidence for the protocol is limited. Bredesen’s early work was a small case series, not a controlled trial, and case series cannot tell you whether an intervention caused the change they describe. A later proof-of- concept trial was small and uncontrolled. Several of the individual components, treating sleep apnoea, exercise, managing vascular risk, correcting deficiencies, have evidence of their own in cognitive health. The combination, delivered as a branded programme, does not yet.

What I aim for is to halt further progression. I have seen improvement in symptoms in some patients, most often those who presented early and at a younger age, and I cannot promise it, because it does not happen for everyone and it depends heavily on how completely the programme is followed.

If that sounds less enthusiastic than other things you will read about the protocol, it is, deliberately.

Common questions

Can Alzheimer’s disease be reversed?

No one can promise that, and I do not. The aim of the work I do is to halt further progression. Some patients, usually those who present early, see their symptoms improve. That is not the same as reversal and it is not guaranteed.

Do I need a diagnosis before I come?

No. A good proportion of the people I see have noticed something themselves, or their family has, and have either not been referred or have been told their tests are normal. Others come because a parent had Alzheimer’s disease and they want to act early. Both are reasonable starting points.

Does it matter whether my practitioner is a doctor?

It matters for what they can do: diagnose, prescribe, interpret the workup and recognise when the problem is something else. Whether it matters for you depends on your situation. The guide to choosing a functional medicine clinic compares the models honestly, including the limits of mine.

Is it safe?

The lifestyle elements carry little risk. The risks worth asking about are the supplements, which can interact with prescribed medication, and the testing, where an unnecessary or poorly interpreted test can lead somewhere unhelpful. Anyone treating you should know your full drug list.

Can it be done remotely?

Much of it can, and I see patients online across the UK. Some parts of the assessment need to happen in person or locally, including examination and phlebotomy, and I will tell you which at the outset.

If you want to talk it through

A discovery call is free and takes about fifteen minutes. It is the quickest way to work out whether this is the right route for you, and whether I am the right person, which is not always the same question.