Dr. Mercola was born and raised in the inner city of Chicago and was a very active child. He was always fascinated by health, wellness and technology, and these inherent interests led him to medical school. He attributes Midwestern University, where he studied osteopathic medicine, as the place where he learned how to truly learn and never stopped since. With a drive to gain further knowledge and experience, Dr. Mercola worked as a pharmacy technician at a physician’s office and later at the Illinois Eye Bank, harvesting donated eyes for cornea transplants. He later went on to work at the Kidney Bank after he was inspired by the mission to improve the health and well-being of people at risk for, or affected by, kidney disease, through preventative methods. His active lifestyle continued into adulthood, when he competed in the Chicago Marathon, finishing in just over three hours. He could clearly see the positive impacts taking care of his body had on his overall health. In 1985, he began seeing patients as the sole practitioner at a private wellness clinic in Schaumburg, IL. His days were filled with routine checkups, school physical exams and seeing chronically ill patients.
“I was prescribing medications but realized that they were not working in many cases.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Determined to find better answers, he began exploring the world of natural medicine in the early 1990s and slowly started to integrate healthy diet and exercise into his patients’ lives. After observing that these methods were working, compared to prescribing prescription drugs, Dr. Mercola completely switched his focus to preventative care using a holistic approach, and that was the start of it all.
Mercola.com
Dr. Mercola founded Mercola.com in 1997 to share his own health experiences, spread vital health information and promote natural ways to achieve optimal health. His readers trusted him for his extensive knowledge and high standards, and looked for his approval on products they were taking.
“In the mid-1990s, I started to notice a shift, as my newsletter readers started to inquire rather frequently as to where they could find trusted, quality products that they could apply to the health regimens they were reading about in the information I provided. It was at that time, I realized I didn’t have many recommendations. I was setting some pretty high standards when it came to evaluating natural health supplements and products because I knew just how important the right ingredients and sustainability was.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola
When he was unable to approve of the formulas and effectiveness of these popular products claiming to increase overall health, he decided to create his own, leaving his family medicine practice to focus more on Mercola.com, as he could reach more people this way. Since 1997, the company has come a long way from a small website to share the latest developments in natural health.
The Mercola campus houses over 950 solar panels, between its rooftop and carport, that fulfill most of the company’s energy needs. It remains one the largest companies in Cape Coral that’s powered by solar energy.
Mercola Market
After extensive research, Dr. Mercola began working with top manufacturers to develop his own line of premium supplements and healthy lifestyle products. He formed a small team in Hoffman Estates, IL, that was as dedicated to quality, innovation, education and sustainability as he was. This team grew, and in 2017, the company moved its headquarters to Cape Coral, FL. Now known as the Mercola Market, the company has developed more than 1,000 premium-quality products for your health, home, pantry and pet, including supplements, personal care and biodynamic foods sourced from Demeter Certified Biodynamic® regenerative farms.
“The Mercola Market offers items that are extensively researched, developed and vetted by myself and my team based on decades of personal scientific findings. Plus, they lack the potentially harmful fillers and additives that you’ll find in many supplements on the market today, and I see to that personally.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Dr. Mercola has always been passionate about empowering people to take control of their health with regenerative practices and informed consent principles, and now, through the Mercola Market and his daily newsletter, he is able to help people worldwide do exactly that.