A Bonita man who posed as a doctor and offered patients non-FDA-approved dietary supplements as alternative remedies for cancer, arthritis and other ailments was sentenced Friday to a year in jail and fined $60,000.

Kurt Walter Donsbach, 75, pleaded guilty last December to 13 felony charges, including practicing medicine without a license and selling misbranded drugs.

Judge Charles Rogers placed Donsbach on probation for 10 years and ordered the defendant not to hold himself out as a doctor, chiropractor or health practitioner.

Defense attorney Thomas Warwick told the judge Donsbach made some mistakes but otherwise helped a lot of people who were given little time to live by traditional doctors.

"This man made a difference in their lives," Warwick told the judge. "There were mistakes made, and we pleaded guilty to those mistakes. This man has done a lot of good."

Warwick said Donsbach had serious health problems -- including suffering a stroke and having high blood pressure -- which would be hard to treat in the county jail.

The attorney said Donsbach was resigned to the fact that he would "leave this Earth without helping another person."

Rogers said the case was not about alternative medicine but about how Donsbach broke the law.

The judge acknowledged that the defendant had thousands of followers and had helped many people and their loved ones.

But Rogers said Donsbach betrayed the very alternative medicine system that he promoted.

Even though he has no medical license in California, Donsbach hosted a radio show on the Internet -- "letstalkhealth.com" -- where he represented himself as a chiropractor and naturopathic doctor, authorities said.

Donsbach offered "alternative, natural and nutritional" remedies for conditions such as cancer and auto-immune disorders, according to authorities.

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