“Breaking news a specialist was silenced by big pharma by exposing the four foods that let her live to 98 years old without doctors” exclaims a March 13, 2026 Facebook post.
The video shows a woman in an orange jumpsuit collapsing on the floor of a courtroom, before cutting to the same figure in an office giving advice. The “specialist” proceeds to explain a “natural remedy” for issues such as ageing, stroke or diabetes while promoting a supplement called Jupi Hydration.
Screenshot of a Facebook reel captured on March 20, 2026
Similar posts were shared on X and Instagram with each post containing an Amazon link to the same product.
Some of the videos include references to the health department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with characters wearing nametags sporting the university’s logo and settings where UCLA Medicine banners can be seen in the background.
Screenshot of a Facebook reel captured on March 20, 2026
Screenshot of a Facebook reel captured on March 20, 2026
However, a UCLA Health spokesman said the accounts are not affiliated with the department.
“UCLA Health does not endorse the product that the account seeks to promote.” the spokesman said. “We are asking Meta to remove the content misrepresenting UCLA Health.”
AFP asked Google’s Gemini if artificial intelligence was used to create one of the videos with more than 14,000 likes. It said it detected the invisible SynthID watermark which is an indication the audio and visuals were edited or generated using Google AI.
Screenshot of a response from Google’s Gemini taken March 26, 2026
The use of artificial intelligence is also evidenced by the robotic tone and repetitive language employed by the “specialist.”
Several other visual cues point to AI use, including a video showing one of the “doctors” running a marathon while wearing a race bib with garbled letters.
Screenshot of a Facebook reel captured on March 20, 2026
‘False sense of medical authority’
The posts come at a time when many people are turning to the internet for medical advice.
While some of the clips touting the discovery of alleged anti-aging products shared information about foods, such as olive oil and garlic, that have shown evidence in improving joint pain and blood flow, they also promoted remedies using cayenne pepper which has less research-backing (archived here, here and here).
“Even when the advice seems harmless, these accounts can still mislead people by creating a false sense of medical authority,” said Girish Nadkarni, professor of medicine and chair of the Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (archived here).
He told AFP such videos could cause individuals to delay seeking treatment and may “contribute to distrust in doctors by promoting the idea that simple online remedies are more trustworthy than evidence-based medical care.”
The true aim of these videos it to sell the supplement — in this case Jupi Hydration — whether or not it contains all of the ingredients described as helpful.
“The medical-style content helps build trust and attention, and that trust is then converted into product sales,” Nadkarni said.
AFP reached out to Jupi Hydration for a comment but a response was not forthcoming.
Read more of AFP’s reporting on misinformation and artificial intelligence here.
