From Deflategate to Greg Hardy, it seems like Tom Brady just can't stay out of the headlines these days. And now he's come to the defense of Alex Guerrero, his trainer, friend, assistant, massage therapist, nutritionist, business partner and "personal guru" who has been investigated numerous times by the Federal Trade Commission for falsely claiming he was a doctor, according to Boston Magazine.

On Monday, the Patriots quarterback stood by his friend in an interview on the "Dennis and Callahan" show on WEEI radio:

I think there's a lot of people that referred to him as a doctor over the years,” Brady said. “Willie McGinest used to call him 'Doc.' That's how I first initially got to know him. I don't know how he referred to himself or what he referred to himself as, but regardless, that never affected me. That was part of his past when I met him. Since then, we've had a great relationship. We see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and it's a privilege to work with him, it really is. I wouldn't be playing today if it wasn't for what he's been able to accomplish with me and the education process that I've gone through and learning to take care of myself … so much of it is being proactive. It's not waiting to get sick, it's not waiting to get injured. You can't. Lifestyle choices are very important to your health and wellness.

Then the four-time Super Bowl champion took aim at the food industry for essentially brainwashing the public into making unhealthy diet choices:

You'll probably go out and drink Coca Cola and think, 'Oh yeah, that's no problem.' Why? Because they pay lots of money for advertisements to think that you should drink Coca Cola for a living? No! I totally disagree with that. And when people do that, I think that's quackery. I think that they can sell that to kids, I mean, that's poison for kids! But they keep doing it … I think we feel like we can just do whatever we want. We can live, we can eat however we want, drink however we want, do all these different exercises and think that's a way to a healthy lifestyle. I think a lot of those things are very wrong. I think we've been lied to by a lot of food companies over the years, by a lot of beverage companies over the years. But we still do it. That's just America. That's what we've been conditioned to.

After dissing Coca-Cola, Brady targeted sugar-coated cereal:

We believe that Frosted Flakes is actually a food. You know? You just keep eating those things and you keep wondering why we do have incredible rates of disease in our country? No one thinks it has anything to do with what we put in our body. I tell you, the more things that you put in your body that are healthy . . . Whatever your belief system is on that, I have my own, certainly vegetables and green supplements, [even] if someone says something, I still take, because I do have a belief system that [supplements] ... help reduce inflammation in my body, along with all the other whole foods that I eat. That's what I believe.

Brady credits Guerrero's holistic approach for keeping him at the top of his game — and at the top of professional football. He said that doctors "with the highest and best education in our country" told him he would need multiple knee surgeries to replace torn ligaments. But he chose to follow Guerrero's alternative approach and it worked: The following year he won Comeback Player of the Year and the next year was named the MVP.

Brady urges people to break out of conventional thinking, often quoting an old Texas saying: "If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you've ever got." The quote greets visitors to the website of the TB12 Sports Therapy Center — a health facility started by Brady and Guerrero located outside Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Clients — both professional and amateur athletes — get an alternative, holistic approach to "athletic preparation, recovery, nutrition and mental fitness." You can bet you won't find soda or sugar-coated cereal there.

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