Patrick Holford is a British author and entrepreneur who endorses a range of vitamin tablets. As an advocate of alternative nutrition and diet methods, he appears regularly on television and radio in the UK and abroad. He has 36 books in print in 29 languages. His business career promotes a wide variety of alternative medical approaches such as orthomolecular medicine, many of which are considered pseudoscientific by mainstream science and medicine.
Holford's claims about HIV and autism are not in line with modern medical thought, and have been criticised for putting people in danger and damaging public health.
Holford obtained a BSc in experimental psychology from the University of York in 1979. As a psychology student, he became interested in the biochemistry of mental health problems. His research brought him in contact with Dr Carl Pfeiffer and Dr Abram Hoffer, both of whom claimed success in treating mental illness with nutritional therapy.
In 1984, Holford founded the Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION). At that institute, he has worked on nutritional approaches to clinical depression, schizophrenia, ADHD and eating disorders. In 1995, the Board of Trustees of ION (of which he was a director) awarded him an Honorary Diploma in Nutritional Therapy.
He retired as Director of ION in 1998 and was awarded ION's Award for Excellence in 2009.
He is the chief executive officer and co-founder (with Professor André Tylee of the Institute of Psychiatry) of the special interest group that developed into Food for the Brain Foundation, a registered charity which has the stated aim of promoting mental health through nutrition. He is also director of the Brain Bio Centre, which specialises in a nutrition-based approach to mental health problems.