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From the statistics 85% of so called labeled patients who “have” schizophrenia came off drugs with this treatment and went back to work. Same goes for other so called “DSM diseases that shrinks use to label and fuck people up.”

This approach is really promising. It is widely used in western Finland. Finland used to have the largest number of suicides on the world. However, now, they have the best statistics in the world. Just imagining people getting well from shrinks in the western world. In fact, once you are in the system, you will not get out. You are labeled crazy, a danger, and have to take meds for the rest of your life. That is not the case with open dialogue. They use much less meds in the process, and the goal is to come off them. Not with regular shrinks where they put you on more and more meds all the time.

Research this guy, Jaakko Seikkula you will hear more great things about him in the future.

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First, there was Scientology

I came across the Purification Rundown book. It is a detox protocol from Scientology “church.” I am not a member of Scientology, but I am always taking what is good and refusing what is bad. The book was amazing and it explained how toxins, drugs, medicines stayed in your body for years. They stay in your fatty tissue and never leave your body. So that is why you have this medicine flushes all the time, where the meds are circulating your body, and you are still experiencing the symptoms of meds you took years ago. This is the only thing I love from Scientology.  Other stuff is dangerous and stupid so I advise staying away from.

Niacin the magic vitamin

With Niacin, and sauna you are able to flush this stuff out of your body for good. This protocol is used a lot by people who got poisoned with Agent Orange in Vietnam, then drug addicts, where they can’t get off drugs, and others.

It is a really easy process. What is new that now an Asian doctor called Dr. George Yu is promoting this protocol and explaining how helpful it can be. Furthermore, Mercola is a big fan of this protocol.

Like I said I have been doing this occasionally for 10 years on my own. I stopped two years ago, and I know that some of my symptoms like depression came back. Toxins are directly related to your well being, depression, physical pain, etc.

However, from my experience, it is an on-going process that you can do in your home or elsewhere.

Here is how it works

You take a large dose of Niacin, which is Vitamin B3, which helps fat cells flush out the toxins that are stored inside them. Then the toxins are circulating your body and with Sauna protocol, you are able to flush them out through skin of intestinal tract.

Dr Yu also recommends taking Active Charcoal tablets to help get rid of the toxins after a sauna, because that stuff will bind anything bad, it comes across.

Scientology did not use Charcoal, for some reason, so I am happy Dr Yu mentioned that.

So you start with 150 mg of Niacin, and you work your way up gradually. The first week you take 150 mg of Niacin, then next time 300mg…

IT all depends on how much you can tolerate niacin.

Because Niacin will make your skin crawl, you will feel uncomfortable, your skin will become blotchy, will burn, etc…..

IT is called niacin flush, which is safe. Dr Yu mentioned that he never came across a person, that would have side effects from Niacin.

And of course, niacin is just a vitamin B3. So you work your dose up to 5 grams, it just depends how well you can tolerate it.

My own personal recipe

I take like 600 mg each time I go to the Sauna. You will feel dizzy of course. So you just sit down on the floor and take a cold shower if possible. I would take more, but till now I did not have large doses of Niacin. I had 100 mg tablets, where I would have to take 50 of them to get my 5 grams dose. But I came across Niacin with 500 mg tablets, where you have to take only 10pieces to get a 5-gram dose. Which is easy.

So you need to stay in the Sauna for at least one hour, you can make a few brakes.

I am telling you that is the hardest part, staying in a sauna for like one hour. It is very hard. However, this is one of the best detox protocols I ever came across in my life besides Andy Cutler Mercury Chelation Protocol of course….

After the sauna, you can take Activated Charcoal, which will pull out the toxins from your GI tract.

Sauna detox explanation videos

Here are two videos that I love, one is from Wolfe, well-known Quack, but in this case, it is very helpful, and of course Mercola…..

I recommend buying Niacin on Amazon, where you are sure you get the quality product. You should buy also activated Charcoal of course.

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I mean there are even new diseases like addiction to internet, that needs to be corrected with side effect infested psych drugs.

When will these animals pay for all the suffering they caused.

I mean they even drug small babies and diagnose them with bipolar disorder.

People even think that it is fashionable to take drugs with serious side effects.

Beware of this horrid money hungry industry that labels at least 50 % of people mentally ill that needs to be on drugs.

For god sake they even label women during the menstrual cycle and their attitude change, which is kind of normal, because the hormonoes are running wild at that period. They call it premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

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I think deep feeling therapies are the future and the best solution for healing your mind.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1fWtMAKRk&feature=email

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Psychological Treatments Improve Outcomes For Back Pain Sufferers

Science Daily — Psychological interventions for chronic low back pain are effective, a new review of studies has found. Not only do these approaches improve psychological outcomes such as depression and health-related quality of life, they also reduce patients’ experience of pain.

“Because this analysis was both more inclusive and more conservative than previous reviews, we have the best evidence to date that these interventions are helpful,” said psychologist and review lead author Robert Kerns, Ph.D., of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

The review, part of a new article series, appears in the January issue of the journal Health Psychology. Each evidence-based review centers on a specific psychological assessment or treatment conducted in the context of a physical disease process or risk reduction effort.

To evaluate the effects of psychological interventions on pain-related outcomes, Kerns and his team gathered data from 22 randomized trials published between 1982 and 2003. Trials were limited to adults with nonmalignant low back pain that had persisted for at least three months. However, most patients had been living with pain for much longer. The average duration was seven and a half years.

The studies were not limited to any one psychological approach. Included in the review were behavioral and cognitive-behavioral techniques; self-regulatory techniques such as hypnosis, biofeedback, and relaxation; and supportive counseling.

The review reports on 12 pain-related outcomes, including pain intensity, pain interference, depression, health care use, disability and health-related quality of life.

In the broadest analysis, psychological interventions — alone or as part of a multidisciplinary approach — proved to be superior to waiting lists or standard treatments on the entire range of pain-related outcomes.

When the researchers analyzed specific outcomes, they found that the largest and most consistent effect was a reduction in pain intensity.

This was somewhat surprising, Kerns said, because when psychologists first began developing interventions for chronic pain several decades ago, the goal was not to reduce pain but to help patients live with their pain more successfully.

“However, a growing body of knowledge suggests that these interventions are actually having a primary effect on people’s experience of pain,” he said.

The review found that psychological interventions also yielded improvements in health-related quality of life, work-related disability, interference of pain with daily living and depression.

Not all treatments were equally effective. Cognitive-behavioral and self-regulatory treatments seemed to yield the greatest effects, particularly when compared to waiting list control groups. Multidisciplinary approaches that included a psychological component also stood out on some measures, reducing pain interference and work-related disability when compared to other active treatments.

According to Dennis Turk, Ph.D., a professor of anesthesiology and pain research at the University of Washington in Seattle, patients with chronic pain sometimes fail to recognize the value of psychological treatments because they’ve been set up to expect a cure.

“Even the latest and greatest treatments don’t cure people with chronic pain,” he said. “Psychological interventions are not cures, but they do reduce pain and improve function and they are important components in the treatment of people with chronic pain.”

Turk added that psychological interventions are also cost-effective when compared to other treatments for chronic low back pain — a key finding, considering that estimates for treatment-related costs range from $20 billion to $80 billion a year in the United States.

“Surgery, opioids, nerve blocks, spinal cord stimulators, implantable drug delivery systems — every one of those particular alternatives is much more expensive and has poorer or at best equal outcomes compared to rehabilitation programs that include psychological components,” said Turk. “The paradox is that, despite data on the effectiveness of psychological interventions, insurers are less willing to pay for them.”

Getting the word out that these treatments are effective and cost-effective is a challenge that psychologists will have to tackle head-on, Kerns said.

“We need to specifically target health care system administrators and third-party payers to try to engage them in a more productive dialogue about the importance of these interventions,” he said. “We continue to have a huge, very costly problem in our society, but we have an intervention that is effective, and we need to do a better job of creating access to these services.”

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Center for the Advancement of Health.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061222090925.htm

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When Gina O’Brien decided she no longer needed drugs to quell her anxiety and panic attacks, she followed doctor’s orders by slowly tapering her dose of the antidepressant Paxil. The gradual withdrawal was supposed to prevent unpleasant symptoms that can result from stopping antidepressants cold turkey. But it didn’t work.

“I felt so sick that I couldn’t get off my couch,” O’Brien said. “I couldn’t stop crying.”

Overwhelmed by nausea and uncontrollable crying, she felt she had no choice but to start taking the pills again. More than a year later the Michigan woman still takes Paxil, and expects to be on it for the rest of her life.

In the almost two decades since Prozac � the first of the antidepressants known as SRIs, or serotonin reuptake inhibitors � hit the market, a number of patients have reported extreme reactions to discontinuing the drugs. Two of the best-selling antidepressants � Effexor and Paxil � have led to so many complaints that some doctors avoid prescribing them altogether.

“It’s not that we never use it, but in the end I will tend not to prescribe Effexor or Paxil,” said Dr. Richard C. Shelton, a psychiatrist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Shelton has received grant support from the makers of both drugs and consulted for a number of other pharmaceutical companies.

Patients report experiencing all sorts of symptoms, sometimes within hours of stopping their medication. They can suffer from flu-like nausea, muscle aches, uncontrollable crying, dizziness and diarrhea. Many patients suffer “brain zaps,” bizarre and briefly overwhelming electrical sensations that propagate from the back of the head.

Though not exactly painful, they are briefly disorienting and can be terrifying to patients who don’t know what they are experiencing. There are case reports of people who have just quit antidepressants showing up in hospital emergency rooms, thinking they are suffering from seizures.

Toni Wilson certainly didn’t know how unpleasant going off Zoloft could be when her doctor recently switched her to Wellbutrin, telling her that the new drug would “take the place of” the old one. The two antidepressants actually work on entirely different neurochemical systems, so going straight from one to the other was equivalent to quitting Zoloft cold turkey.

“After about three days I felt real anxious and irritable,” the Kansas woman said in an e-mail message. “I would shake, not eat much, it felt like little needles in my body and head.”

Cases like Wilson’s would be virtually nonexistent if physicians took more care in weaning their patients off antidepressants, said Philip Ninan, vice president for neuroscience at Wyeth, the maker of Effexor.

“The management of discontinuation symptoms is relatively easy if you know about it,” Ninan said, and noted that Wyeth had made efforts to educate both physicians and patients.

Yet surprisingly few doctors know enough about SRI discontinuation to manage it effectively. A 1997 survey of English doctors found that 28 percent of psychiatrists and 70 percent of general practitioners had no idea that patients might have problems after discontinuing antidepressants. Awareness may have increased since then, but the phenomenon is so little studied that no one has done the necessary research to find out.

The condition’s prevalence is equally mysterious. Studies put the rate at anywhere from 17 percent to 78 percent for the most problematic drugs.

So little is known about it that researchers aren’t even exactly sure what causes the symptoms. It may be related to the fact that the brain chemical affected by most of the antidepressants on the market today, serotonin, does a lot more than regulate mood. It is also involved in sleep, balance, digestion and other physiological processes. So when you throw the brain’s serotonin system out of whack, which is essentially what you’re doing by either starting or discontinuing an antidepressant, virtually the whole body can be affected.

Generally the drugs that are metabolized most quickly cause more severe symptoms, Shelton said. Effexor, which breaks down in a period of hours, is one of the worst SRIs in that regard; Prozac, which has a half-life of about a week, is considered the best.

Some doctors have been able to minimize withdrawal symptoms in patients who are quitting Effexor or Paxil by gradually switching them over to Prozac, then tapering them off the more easily discontinued drug.

Critics of the pharmaceutical industry complain that drug companies downplay the severity of drug discontinuation symptoms. The prescribing information companies provide to doctors warns that patients occasionally experience mild symptoms when they stop taking SRI antidepressants, but imply that tapering off the medication can prevent problems. Medical journals describe the ill effects of going off the drugs as “mild and short-lived,” and usually avoidable if the dose is tapered.

“I don’t think they’re difficult to go off,” said Alan Schatzberg, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “The vast majority of people aren’t that sensitive.”

Schatzberg recently chaired a Wyeth-sponsored panel of physicians that offered guidelines for how to manage “antidepressant discontinuation syndrome,” the preferred medical term for what a layperson would think of as withdrawal. He has also served as a consultant to several other pharmaceutical companies.

Terms like “antidepressant discontinuation syndrome” demonstrate the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to downplay the problem, charged Karen Menzies, an attorney who has been involved in litigation over the phenomenon.

“Withdrawal is the word that is used in Europe,” she said.

In December 2004 Britain’s drug regulatory agency issued a report that warned that all SRIs “may be associated with withdrawal” and noted that Paxil and Effexor “seem to be associated with a greater frequency of withdrawal reactions.”

But drug companies insist antidepressants can’t cause withdrawal because they are not technically addictive. Even so, many patients who have gone through the experience say it feels like withdrawal to them. Some can’t work, drive, socialize or do other everyday things for weeks.

“You just feel awful,” said a New York children’s entertainer, who asked not to be named for professional reasons. He has taken a small dose of Effexor for eight years rather than suffer through the withdrawal experience. But he said the inconvenience is worth it for the benefits the drug provided him when he needed it.

Taking SRIs indefinitely is not an attractive option for many patients because it means putting up with unpleasant side-effects such as weight gain and sexual dysfunction. For women who want to have children it’s an especially risky choice; researchers have documented withdrawal in newborns whose mothers were taking antidepressants, and some SRIs have been linked to birth defects.

Having to keep taking Paxil makes O’Brien angry because she feels at the mercy of GlaxoSmithKline, the company that makes it.

Though a GSK spokesperson said the symptoms associated with discontinuing Paxil are generally mild and manageable, in O’Brien’s eyes the company is profiting by having hooked her on one of its drugs.

“If they ever did quit making Paxil, I’d be in so much trouble,” O’Brien said. “What really makes me mad is if I can’t get off it, why am I paying them? They should be paying me.”

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060806/ap_on_he_me/stuck_on_meds

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Optimists may enjoy longer lives than people with a dimmer outlook on the future, a long-term study suggests.

Researchers found that of nearly 7,000 adults followed since their college days in the 1960s, those who were optimistic in their youth had a lower risk of dying over the next 40 years than their more pessimistic peers.

On average, the most pessimistic study participants were 42 percent more likely to die of any cause than the most positive participants, according to findings published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings medical journal.

The results echo those of a number of past studies on personality factors and health, including research that has linked optimism to longer life. One study of elderly adults found that those with a positive view of the future were less likely than pessimists to die over the next decade — regardless of their health at the start of the study.

The current findings could be explained by any number of factors, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Beverly H. Brummett of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

For example, they say, optimists are less likely to suffer from depression than are pessimists, which could, in turn, affect their physical health. They may also maintain a healthier lifestyle, paying more attention to their diet and exercise habits.

These latest findings are based on a 40-year follow-up of 6,958 men and women who entered the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s. At the time, they took a standard personality test that gauges a person’s tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic.

In general, optimists believe negative events are only temporary and don’t let them affect their overall attitude about themselves and the world. Pessimists, in contrast, take such events to heart, often blaming themselves and believing that the bad times will last forever.

In this study, 1,630 were deemed pessimists and 923 optimists, while most were judged to be somewhere between a pure optimist or pessimist.

If pessimism is a risk factor for premature death, that begs the question of whether anything can be done about it.

It is difficult to change the basic constructs of your personality, Brummett told Reuters Health. However, she added, “there are many aspects of personality that can be modified to a certain degree if an individual is motivated to do so.”

For example, Brummett said, people with a hostile temperament — a trait linked to heart disease and premature death — may be able to change their ways with the help of anger management therapy.

On the other side of the spectrum, people might try injecting some positivity into their lives. As an example, Brummett pointed to meditation, which, according to some research, may boost positive emotions.

SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, December 2006.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061222/hl_nm/optimists_dc

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A Synopsis of a Natural Recovery from Manic Depression and Some of the Lessons that I Have Learned (2003)

By Allen Darman

Soon after I was first diagnosed with manic depression in June of 1994, I soon realized that the likelihood of my ever becoming truly well from this condition was almost not non-existent. I also realized that my chances of ever becoming well from manic depression were perhaps far less than that of most persons. This realization stemmed from the facts that (1) my true bipolar onset was in 1963 as an eleven year old child (amazingly I had avoided the medical model for over three decades despite very substantial symptoms), (2) over the thirty one years prior to my initial diagnosis I had already had hundreds of episodes of either very substantial mania or severe depression, and (3) I was not responding well to lithium at all, as even on 900 mg. my hands shook uncontrollably and I lost a great deal of reading comprehension and general mental acuity.

In essence, if anyone knew the truth of my circumstances in 1994, as well as knew the truth of my prior life experiences for the past three decades, I was not a person that was ever going to get better from manic depression. It was hopeless, or so even I had thought. Despite such hopelessness, I have always been a person that does not like being told that something is impossible. In July of 1994, I will always remember telling a very close bipolar friend of mine with tears in my eyes “if there is any way out of this trap [manic depression]. I am going to everything that I can to find it [for both of us].” This single statement has defined the last ten years of my life.

It is now June of 2004. For a little over four years, I have been able to completely control any manic depressive symptoms in myself, when I so choose to use my profound understanding of the true common causes this illness and/or when I have the means to afford optimal nutritional and other natural supplementation. And for a few years prior to June 2000, I was very close to knowing then what I know today.

I have not taken a single psychotropic medicine since September of 1997. Nor have I needed to take any medication since this time in order to control the symptoms of my illness. In November 1997, about five months after I had started to use psychotropic nutrients such as amino acids and use other natural measures as well, I had gained much greater control over my biochemistry and behavior than any drug that my psychiatrist had ever given me for manic depression.

What follows is the story of my recovery from an often devastating mental illness, an illness that most persons still erroneously consider incurable.

From the time I was first diagnosed with manic depression in June 1994 until I made a successful transition off of medication by using amino acids and other natural measures, I was prescribed and took the following medications for various periods of time; lithium, Depakote, Elavil, Zoloft, Serzone, Paxil, Ambien, Xanex, and Klonopin.

Neither mood stabilizer worked well for me. I took lithium in various dosages for about eight months. Lithium made me “a zombie” in 1200 mg. and 900 mg. dosages. I could not resolve hand trembling at these dosages as well. On lower dosages of 600 mg. and 300 mg. of lithium my mania recurrently, if not easily, broke through. Lithium did not seem to help my depressive states at all. My manic states rather easily blew through Depakote like it was water.

I slept sixteen hours a day on what I believe was only a 50 mg. dosage of Elavil. This medication clearly did not work out well for me. I was only prescribed Paxil and Serzone for a very short period of time (about a week) during one hospitalization that I had in July of 1996 for severe depression. Paxil and Serzone, in combination with Depakote, shut my small intestines down such that they nearly burst. I nearly died from this unusual drug combination of an SSRI antidepressant, a tricyclic antidepressant, and Depakote, all given at the same time (as it caused this intestinal shutdown, a medical condition with a name that is something like “paralytic illeus”).

Ambien helped me a little to sleep, but on even a “double dose” of this I could often only get three hours rest, which was not nearly enough sleep when I was manic, and I was manic quite a bit in the late 80”s though mid 1997. Often Sominex, an over the counter sleep remedy, would give me just as much sleep as Ambien, if not a bit more.

When I was first prescribed Xanex in December of 1995, this medication was a godsend for me. Finally I had found a chemical substance that would knock me out. Xanex was the first medication that I ever took that allowed me to get enough sleep such that my manic states did “not go over the top”. I was not taking a mood stabilizer at this time, so getting enough sleep was critical to me, and Xanex did the trick. However, within three months of my first taking Xanex, I had an adverse reaction to it (very blurred vision in one eye) on only .875 mg, a very low dose for most persons. As a result of this adverse reaction, I had to cease taking Xanex immediately. Perhaps needless to say, I had a fairly manic March of 1996 after I abruptly had to cease taking Xanex, as I could hardly sleep at all.

Of all the medications that I ever took for manic depression, two of them helped me substantially for fairly significant lengths of time. The first of these medications was Zoloft. When I first took Zoloft in the fall of 1992, this medication lifted me out of a three and a half month bout with severe depression in about two weeks. The whole world looked rosy to me when I first took Zoloft. I could not believe the change. As suicidial and as ignorant of depression as I was at the time, Zoloft may have actually saved my life. For this I am very thankful. However, towards the end of my time on medication, even twice as much Zoloft as I had always responded to did not seem to help me out of severe depression at all.

In September of 1996, I decided to begin to take a few vitamins and minerals in an attempt lift myself out of a current state of deep depression. This was the first depressive state I ever had that had not responded well to Zoloft. Within a few weeks of starting to take vitamins and minerals to help my mood state for the first time, I knew that these nutrient substances had made a huge difference. And finally, after months of feeling really blue, I was not depressed.

The second medication that I took for manic depression that helped me substantially was Klonopin. After I had an adverse reaction to Xanex in February of 1996 and had to stop taking it, I went though a fairly manic month or so. I was in real trouble at this point. I simply could not sleep well in March of 1996 without some sort of powerful chemical assistance. Whenever I could not sleep enough my manic state escalated rather quickly into severe mania. After reading a number of books and talking to a few other persons, I asked my psychiatrist for a trial of Klonopin, despite the fact that I had already had a negative reaction to another benzodiazapine medication. Reluctantly he agreed. I went on Klonopin in April of 1996. Klonopin was also a godsend for me. It bought me 18 months of being able to sleep at least enough so that I did not end up in the hospital for severe mania, and/or burn up any more serious money from being really manic. Even though I only got about four and a half to five hours or so of sleep on Klonopin, and in the end I had to have a few beers with 2 mg. of Klonopin in order to really go down at night, at least I could sleep long enough and deep enough so that in the morning when I woke up I was no longer really manic. I used to actually get up sluggish in the morning, what I called “a Klonopin hangover”, but by the end of that same day, I was often pretty zippity again… manic enough that I could not fall asleep and sleep well at all without either Klonopin or a combination of Klonopin and alcohol. I took Klonopin daily from April 1996 until September of 1997. I became clearly and knowingly addicted to Klonopin, not knowing a better answer to control my manic depressive tendencies at the time.

As result of my initial success with using some vitamins and minerals to help resolve depression in myself in September 1996, I began to experiment with other nutrients, despite the fact I was still on, and still really needed to take, Klonopin. In November of 1996, I began taking a potassium supplement. At this time, I was running on the high side (hypomanic), but I was not out of control. I was just running faster than the norm, but I was still lucid and quite functional. Either the very first day or the second day that I took potassium, I knew that just the simple mineral potassium made my manic state noticeably more elevated (worse). I immediately stopped taking potassium. My interest in nutrients grew immensely at this point. How could just a simple potassium supplement make my manic states worse? And if potassium made my manic states worse, I wondered would potassium help my depressive states? A few months later, in January of 1997, I found out. Potassium clearly made my depressed state in January of 1997 better, almost as much as Zoloft had done, but it did so much quicker. How could this be? I remember thinking at this time “how could such simple and elemental nutrients be ignored by the doctors that treat mental illness?” Perhaps needless to say, I soon began to experiment with nutrients even more.

In May of 1997, I began to take my first amino acid, the excitatory amino acid tyrosine. I took 500 mg. of tyrosine in the morning, with the odd collection of vitamins and minerals I had already determined as helpful to me over the past nine months or so. I was feeling pretty good at the time, not too manic, and not at all depressed. I did not notice the effect of tyrosine on me until the bottle ran out and I did not bother to replace it. Within a week of my not taking tyrosine, I realized that I had sunk day by day from a fairly stable and functional state to a state of serious, if not severe, depression. As I lay in my bed in early July of 1997, I wondered why? Why was I depressed? Life was clearly going very well for me at this point in my life. I had no triggers, no stressors, such that I should feel depressed unless… my depressive onset was simply chemical in nature. I finally realized as I lay thinking in my bed that it was the fact that I had run out of tyrosine that I was depressed. I theorized that whatever tyrosine was making in my brain had become depleted. I also guessed, and guessed correctly, that whatever tyrosine was making in my brain was necessary for me to not feel depressed. (I later learned that tyrosine is the nutrient precursor to dopamine and norepinephrine, two key excitatory neurotransmitters. I also learned that tyrosine can either cause or contribute to a manic state, if a bipolar person takes too much tyrosine for their biochemistry at the moment. One needs to learn how to use inhibitory nutrients before taking tyrosine if they are bipolar – see below.).

As I did not have any tyrosine in the house, and it was Sunday night such that I could not just go to the health food store and just buy some more, I took some (nine grams in aggregate) of multi-amino acid tablets I had just recently ordered but had yet to take for the first time. Then I took my Klonopin, had a beer or two, and went to bed. Eight hours later, I woke up manic as hell. I could not believe what had happened to me. I had gone from a state of very serious depression to very severe mania within eight hours, simply as the result of amino acid ingestion. This was absolutely amazing to me. I repeated the same mistake a week later, with virtually the same result.

At this point in my life (July of 1997), I immediately knew the enormous social and scientific significance of what had just happened to me. I also immediately signed up to be “a guinea pig” for the rest of world in regard to what nutrients can do to correct manic depression. I was going to research and take every nutrient that I possibly could in an attempt to discover what it might teach me about correcting my condition of chemical imbalance. Soon after this, when I knew just a little bit more, I also decided to research every common impairment to essential nutrient delivery in the human species, as it was clear to me from the standpoints of both simple logic and my own self experience that these common nutrient impairment issues were often the true common causes of manic depression. In my opinion, this simple logic has been anecdotally proven to be correct, not only for myself, but also for a number of other persons that are bipolar as well.

My first discovery about how to use nutrients was that I discovered that it is “a must” from the standpoint of safety that a bipolar person learns how to use inhibitory nutrients before they start using excitatory ones, such as tyrosine or phenylalanine. Excitatory nutrients can easily cause bipolar persons to become hypomanic, manic, or severely manic within hours of their ingestion. If you are bipolar you definitely don’t want this to happen without having an answer in place beforehand. Inhibitory nutrients such as inhibitory amino acids can both counteract and balance excitatory ones. Inhibitory nutrients, when used properly, can resolve a manic state. Inhibitory nutrients, in combination with other natural measures, seem to take mania completely out of the equation if these nutrients are used properly on a daily basis.

In August of 1997, I began to use inhibitory nutrients, completely ceasing my use of excitatory nutrients temporarily due to my recognition of their dangers without having an antidote (knowledge of how to use inhibitory nutrients).

Within a month, by taking a combination of inhibitory nutrients I was able to get off of 18 months of daily Klonopin usage completely without any difficult withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. The three generally amino acids of taurine, GABA, and tryptophan were the heart of my inhibitory *censored*tail at this time. These three amino acids, along with a few vitamin and mineral cofactors, were giving me the best sleep of my entire adult life within a month of my first taking them.

Incidentally, the three amino acids of taurine, GABA, and tryptophan happen to be the very same amino acids that were helpful to Margot Kidder in regard to sleep and inhibition. In case you are not aware of this, Margot Kidder is an actress that overcame her own diagnosis of bipolar disorder via solely natural means. Taurine, GABA, and tryptophan also happen to be the same three amino acids that Julia Ross speaks about using successfully for inhibition in her book “The Mood Cure”. To the best of my knowledge, Margot Kidder, Julia Ross, and I all reached similar conclusions on these three amino acids independently of each other. Although it is true that any one person can respond positively or negatively to any individual amino acid, and therefore this inhibitory amino acid regime is clearly not for everyone, it appears rather remarkable to me that three persons independently of each other all found these same three amino acids as being useful to either themselves or their clients.

September of 1997 marked the last time that I have ever needed or wanted to take any medication whatsoever to control mania or depression in myself. Nutrients and other natural measures not only “did the job much better” that any medication that I ever took for my illness, nutrients and other natural measures also did the job much faster as well. Amino acids often work within a single hour, sometimes they need a single day, and rarely do amino acids need more than a handful of days to effect profoundly positive mood change. This should perhaps not be surprising, as roughly 99 out of the 100 or so known neurotransmitters are primarily amino acid based, as well as amino acids represent nearly ¾ of the functional chemistry in the body, once the water is taken out.

By January of 1998, I realized that manic depression was often simply the result of a sub-clinical malabsorption syndrome, of which allergic and toxic issues were nearly always involved as well. At this time I also realized that (1) multiple hidden food allergies, (2) intestinal dysbiosis issues (dysbiosis essentially means candida and other yeasts, various problematic bacteria, and/or parasites, (3) a possible lack of digestive enzymes, (4) a possible lack of HCL (stomach acid), (4) excessive cooked food intake, (5) a lack of nutrients in our depleted soils, and (6) stress (which is always biochemically depleting no matter what the source) were all issues that were either causative or contributory factors in my illness.

Of the aforementioned six factors, I sensed that multiple hidden food allergies and intestinal dysbiosis were often the primary issues to address in almost any person that is bipolar. It appears that these two factors are often the root cause of bipolar disorder in many of those thus afflicted.

Incidentally, other persons besides myself, many of them doctors or professional health care providers, believe that hidden food allergy and intestinal dysbiosis issues are often major, if not primary, causative factors underlying both ADHD and alcoholism as well. In addition to this, hidden food allergy and/or intestinal dysbiosis issues are strongly implicated by alternative medicine as a whole as being either causative or contributory to the symptoms of various other mental and physical maladies such as autism, schizophrenia, anxiety, fibromyalgia, migraines, and arthritis.

Over the past six years or so I have added a few more common malabsorptive factors to the conceptual overview reflected above. One of these malabsorptive factors is the possibility of inadequate hydration. Adequate water intake apparently helps with nutrient absorption in the small intestines. A second possible malabsorptive factor that I have added over time is inadequate physical movement in regard to the abdominal area. We humans were apparently designed to walk far more that our modern lifestyle dictates we do. This physical movement helps the intestinal area to work as well as it should, and it apparently helps nutrient absorption.

Despite my later realizations, for the most part the general conceptual overview that I developed in late 1997 is pretty much the same one that I am still using to remain well today. The general principle underlying this conceptual overview is “any factor that impairs adequate nutrient absorption into the body is a factor that can either directly cause or greatly contribute to the symptoms of manic depression”. And the general principal that “cures” bipolar disorder is “any and all common factors which impair nutrient delivery into the body are both fairly readily identifiable and adequately correctable in any person that may have them”.

Worthy of note here is that there appears to be a number of alternative practitioners that are either unaware themselves or that wish to take advantage of some of their patients that may be unaware for the purpose of fiscal gain. You do not need any doctor whatsoever to determine your hidden food allergies. No laboratory test whatsoever is accurate enough to determine someone’s food allergies or food intolerances. You only need to go on an elimination diet that is performed by you at home. Yet, perhaps tens of thousands of hidden food allergy tests of various sorts are still being recommended and prescribed to patients yearly by many practitioners of alternative medicine. You also do not need any laboratory tests whatsoever to determine candida or other intestinal dysbiosis issues in yourself as well. Simply dosing up slowly until you reach a therapeutic dosage level (that shows solid results both in the toilet and in your general bowel habits) with a probiotic such as powdered Primal Defense is all that is necessary to determine if candida and “bad bacteria” in the GI tract were a major problem for you prior to taking Primal Defense. And parasite testing is both known to be quite inaccurate and non-inclusive (it can miss a lot). An herbal parasitic regime administered by yourself at home such as that recommended by Dr. Hulda Clark or the website http://www.curezone.com is far better than using any laboratory testing and/or medication whatsoever to resolve the issues of parasites if this issue applies to you. In addition, you don’t need either a doctor or any testing whatsoever to resolve the possible lack of digestive enzymes in yourself. Trial use of a powerful enzyme preparation such as DigestEnz, slowly dosing up while monitoring the effect in yourself is good simple advice that anyone can follow at home to determine if they may lack an adequate production of digestive enzymes in order to digest meals well. This can without the services or advice of any doctor whatsoever. And the trial use of HCL an hour or so after taking digestive enzymes when you eat a meal (if you are using such), dosing up slowly while monitoring the effect in yourself is good simple advice that anyone can follow at home to determine possible stomach acid deficiency in his or her self. This can also be done without the services or advice of any doctor whatsoever. Although the information contained in this paragraph is not nearly thorough enough to fully resolve these common malabsorptive issues of hidden food allergy, intestinal dysbiosis, a possible lack of digestive enzymes, and a possible lack of HCL, I think that you, the reader, may have a solid sense of where I am going here. “YOU CAN, IF NOT MUST, CURE YOURSELF” of manic depression for the most part. And you can do so without getting a lot of expensive and/or marginally useful (if not useless) laboratory tests to do so.

Going back to my story…

During 1998 and 1999, it became clear to me that the broad biochemical deficiency that manic depression not only effects the brain, it also effects the liver, the pancreas, the thyroid gland, the adrenal glands, etc. Every organ and cell in the body is essentially starving for functional nutrition in order for it to perform properly when one is bipolar.
And during 1998 and 1999, I also realized that most of the efforts to correct manic depression via natural means should be targeted towards correcting GI tract dysfunction, and not just targeted toward correcting the function of the brain itself. The brain is simply “a trailing secondary organ to primary gut events”. Gut status and brain status are far more closely connected than most persons realize.

Since September of 1997, when I first read the classic alternative medicine books “Depression – Cured At Last” by Dr. Sherry Rogers and “The Way Up From Down” by Dr. Priscilla Slagle (two books that greatly taught me the concepts in the conceptual model discussed above), I have picked through and picked through this newer alternative medicine reality, refining, validating, and/or improving on its great new truths.

I should perhaps mention here that I am of the opinion that newer alternative medical reality as generally represented by Dr. Sherry Rogers, Dr. Priscilla Slagle, Joan Matthews Larson, Patrick Holford, Dr. Charles Gant, Jerry Rubin, Elizabeth Lipski, Julia Ross and a number of other doctors and practitioners today is probably going to replace many of the older concepts and treatments of alternative medicine. Doctors such as Dr. Abram Hoffer (a man that is admittedly a true hero in my eyes nonetheless) and Dr. William Walsh are still espousing some older orthomolecular concepts and alternative treatments as “the highest degree of alternative medical truth”. Perhaps they are right. Only time will tell here. However, my life experience (an experience which has included taking well over 120,000 capsules of various supplements since mid-1997), my hundreds of informal self trials of intentionally inducing and then correcting bipolar symptoms (especially depression), and the great deal of research I have done since mid 1997 has led me to disagree with these doctors for the most part. I disagree with them in regard to their (1) general conceptual misunderstanding of my illness, (2) their incorrect focus in treating bipolar disorder as a result of point (1), and in regard to many of the treatments that they either recommend or miss recommending (when I feel such treatments are often necessary).

In stating the above, I do not mean to demean the individual, if not heroic, efforts of Dr. Hoffer, Dr. Walsh and other doctors of the same genre in any way whatsoever. However, it strongly appears to me that a newer conceptual model of mental illness and its proper treatment is replacing an older one inside the arena of alternative medicine, even if allopathic medicine is not considered here at all. I am a person that concurs with this newer conceptual alternative understanding. This newer understanding seems to have begun to blossom over the last six years or so, an event to which we all perhaps owe special thanks to Dr. Sherry Rogers for her absolutely brilliant thought and her rather prolific writing. Dr. Rogers was by far my greatest teacher, despite her not knowing how to use amino acids therapeutically at all. (Knowledge of amino acid use was knowledge that I found was key for me in order to properly resolve my illness, and for this knowledge I had to go elsewhere.)

By early 2000, after many years of great effort, a hundred or so books, hundreds of conversations with other persons, many thousands of miles driven, and many tens of thousands of dollars spent, for all ostensible purposes I realized how I could always correct mania and depression in myself by solely using natural means. At this point in time, I could avoid any and all symptoms of my illness whenever I desired to. I could hit “biochemical 10’s” day after day and month after month at will if I so chose to do so. For me a “biochemical 10” means that I exhibit an aura of deep mental and physical wellness that is rather obvious to anyone that sees me. When I am a “biochemical 10” I live in the present. I feel great each and every moment that I am awake; and I am not manic at all, nor am I depressed at all as well. Very few “normal persons” without any psychiatric diagnosis whatsoever appear to feel nearly as well as I do or are as mood stable as I am when I am a “biochemical 10” as I define this to be in myself.

Once I knew that I could hit a “biochemical 10” at will whenever I wished to do so, I did something rather unusual, but with a number of reasons behind it. I often settled for a degree of wellness that was far less than a 10, a situation that is still true today. One reason for this is that for me to be a “biochemical 10” cost quite a bit of money supplement-wise (between $400 to $500 a month), a cost that I could not always afford. A second reason for this is that to be a 10 I had to always avoid quite a few foods that were constantly being put in front of me by either family or friends. Rather than always refuse them, I’d simply eat a food that I knew that I would react to negatively to some extent, and then I would test treatment methodology (clear this food out the next day or the day after by using high dosage bentonite and psyllium). And the third reason, and by far the most important one, is that if I stayed a 10 month after month, my ability to continue to learn by trial and error and my ability to test or refine better treatments for my illness was completely lost. I was, and still am, willing to sacrifice my optimal own wellness for the sake of learning and for the sake of others. Few persons understand or accept this, but that is their problem, not mine.

Since the fall of 1997, I have not been trying all of the supplements and natural measures that I have simply to achieve my own wellness. I have been attempting to learn all that I can about my illness in order to make a contribution to the general understanding of my ill. I have been willingly and intentionally sacrificing my own optimal health and wellness in order to help other persons that still suffer. For the past seven years I have often been intentionally sloppy with my natural wellness regime. I have intentionally ingested my known food allergens at least a few hundred times, if not more. I have often intentionally caused or aggravated intestinal dysbiosis issues in myself as well (by a high sugar diet). In doing so, I have intentionally caused manic depressive symptoms in myself, often to the point of severity. My goals in doing this were to test, validate, and/or refine my preexisting knowledge. As a concrete example here, I have intentionally induced and then corrected depression at will in myself within a day or two over a hundred times since August of 1999, the point in which I first realized that I could do so. I did not mind doing this at all, as it is my sincere belief that I was and still am developing a “world changing degree of knowledge”.

Since early 2000, I can quite literally create and then correct a rather incredible range of depressive symptoms in myself by using only natural means from within a matter of a handful of hours to a matter of three or four days. I can also create and then correct a significant degree of manic symptoms in myself by using only natural means within a matter of hours to a matter of days at will as well. Admittedly, despite the fact that I have been severely manic a few hundred times in my life between 1963 and 1996, it is extremely hard for me to become much more that seriously hypomanic at this point in time, and to do so can take me well over a month. I have simply corrected my biochemistry chemistry too much these past seven years or so to get severely manic any more without a great deal of time and effort. Although I can get hypomanic readily at will by taking a high dose of excitatory amino acids along with some vitamin and mineral cofactors, this state does not last longer than a matter of hours, and it appears to always be completely self corrective without any further intervention whatsoever. This is quite a contrast to my manic states years ago, in which my seriously hypomanic states had a strong tendency to continue to escalate to the point of severe mania. Conversely, I can simply eat right (which means avoiding my food allergens and eating a diet that is good for me), take care of my gut properly such that it is always absorptive and has a low level of toxins, and supplement my biochemistry as necessary. In doing so, I suffer no symptoms of manic depression whatsoever.

I have found few persons understand or accept what I am attempting to do in the above. I have also found that many persons are either awful quick to criticize me or they try to discredit me with others for not being completely well at all times. They either do not realize or do not accept that all of what I have been doing for a number of years and am still doing today in regard to my being well or my becoming sick is often intentional for the purpose of learning more about my illness. And if my being sick is not intentional, it is just that I have become too fiscally impoverished to be able to remain optimal at all times. I simply conserve my supply of costly supplements to be optimally well when the need arises. However, given adequate fiscal means to do so, and a valid reason (or reasons) to be optimally well, I can be such at all times. This has been the case since April 2000, if not a few months sooner.

If the truth was actually known, by any valid measurement whatsoever, I have quite literally “cured myself of over three decades of severe symptoms of manic depression”. I do not know it all about manic depression. Some persons are very likely to be more right that I am on some of the details concerning this illness. However, as a result of both my recovery and my research, it seems entirely possible to me that I have may have developed a “Nobel Prize winning level of understanding” of my illness. No, I do not expect to win this prize, and yes, such a thought does smack of manic delusion. I simply state such to give the reader a sense of where I honestly think I am here. Regardless of whether I am intentionally mildly depressed, severely depressed, of normal mood, hypomanic, or I happen to be a “biochemical 10” at the moment, I have waken up each and every single day for more than four years knowing that the fact that I may have developed a “Nobel Prize winning level of understanding” of manic depression is very probably the truth. I do realize that no one as yet believes in either my representations or me personally. However, I also realize that it is extremely likely that no one on earth as yet has a clue as to how to methodically and adequately resolve a state of severe depression in his or her self in a period of time that averages as little as eight to twelve hours, assuming that they have an empty stomach prior to initiating treatment.

I have realized for quite some time that for many millions of other bipolar persons it is inevitable that medication use to control manic depression is going to be found pointless, if not seriously counterproductive to their true recovery. No medication ever invented can correct a substantial degree of essential nutrient deficiency. And fairly broad essential nutrient deficiency is clearly a very major part of what manic depression is truly all about. Medication, despite its ability to often successfully mask the symptoms of manic depression, is also successfully masking the real truth about the true causes and corrections of this state of biochemical imbalance, a state of imbalance that involves far more nutrient deficiency than nutrient excess.

Despite my saying the above, I am not entirely anti-medication. I am anti-symptom. Medication use is often a very valid steppingstone to true wellness. Medication use is still very justified until the new reality of how to cure manic depression via natural means is better worked out such that it can be widely and safely applied to other persons. Unfortunately, this latter event may take quite some time. This is because current medical research and medical practice is totally deaf to those of all of us that have either cured ourselves of this devastating illness or have made very substantial progress in this direction, and it has been deaf to us for years. It is perhaps far too much of an embarrassment to the current medical model that a number of fairly simple and fairly basic biological facts, when they are coupled together successfully as I have done, will often totally cure decades of severe symptoms of manic depression. Or perhaps this medical model and the pharmaceutical model underlying it is making way too much money, an income that they don’t want to lose if we all become well. Or perhaps persons will ask, “If manic depression is fully correctable with nutrients and other natural measures, what other illnesses can be corrected via similar natural means as well?”

If the real truth becomes known, perhaps almost every illness, both mental and physical, is going to be found to benefit far more from over the counter nutrients purchased in a health food store (or over the internet) than any medication that was ever invented. This latter truth has to scare modern medicine to death, as many doctors may lose their million dollar houses, their $50,000 cars, and anything else that may need their high incomes from dispensing medications, many of which are ultimately going to be found to be obsolete. This finding that the majority of medications are rather pale compared to the power of essential nutrients (applied properly) may take ten years to happen, it may take twenty years to happen, but it IS going to happen. The truth of the power of nutrients vs. the weakness of medication is a truth that is just far too powerful, and just way too obvious, to ignore much longer.

I know the real truth as represented in the above in a very real and deeply heartfelt way.

I know the real truth of the power of nutrients vs. the weakness of medicines partially as the result of my personally taking well over 120,000 capsules or tablets of various vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, probiotics, digestive enzymes, accessory nutrients, and other natural supplements since mid 1997. At least 80,000 of these were capsules of individual or blended amino acids… which happen to be “great teachers” of how both human biochemistry and the GI tract work from a practical standpoint. Such massive supplementation is not necessary to correct manic depression. However, this massive supplementation was necessary for me in order to perform many hundreds of informal self trials over the past six years as “a guinea pig for the rest of the world” in order to discover much of significance about my illness.

I also know the real truth partially as the result of my learning how to take mania right out of the equation in 1997/8 by the use of inhibitory nutrients on a daily basis. Part of the nutrients that I take to resolve mania also greatly helps me to resolve sleep onset, sleep quality, and sleep duration issues in myself as well. Very similar inhibitory nutrients to that which I am using have perhaps helped many hundreds, if not thousands, of persons to slow down, to resolve hypomania and mania, to resolve anxiety, etc. I highly suggest the book “The Mood Cure” by Julia Ross here. Although I disagree with Ms. Ross on her suggestions regarding excitatory amino acids, as I feel they are outdated, and I also feel Ms. Ross also misses a possibly key inhibitory nutrient combination of carnitine and phosphatidyl choline, my experience with using combinations of inhibitory amino acids almost mirrors Ms. Ross’s suggestions exactly. It appears that Julia Ross, the author of “The Mood Cure”, Margot Kidder, the actress that overcame bipolar disorder in herself via natural means, and myself independently reached extremely similar conclusions on how to use inhibitory amino acids in the late 1990’s or so.

I know the real truth about the power of nutrients vs. medication partly as a result of discovering a nutrient combination in the fall of 1997 that acted just like lithium in me. This nutrient combination both slowed and steadied my rate of neuronal firing, just like lithium does, but without my having any adverse side effects whatsoever. This nutrient combination is l-carnitine in the morning and phosphatidyl choline afterwards. In my opinion, the nutrient combination of carnitine/choline simply begs to be researched in regard to its effect on manic depression. Perhaps inositol or other nutrients may either help or be necessary cofactors here as well, but no doubt about it, in combination with what else I was taking l-carnitine and phosphatidyl choline (in an adequate dosage, I use 500 mg. of carnitine and 3 to 5 capsules of phosphatidyl choline from Solgar) profoundly slowed down my “spontaneous rate of neuronal firing”, just like lithium does. It also lowered my speech volume and slowed my rate of speech remarkably. Unfortunately, since late 1997 my cries on this issue of research into carnitine/choline (along with a multivitamin multimineral preparation and some Omega 3 oil perhaps to cover any other unknown nutrient cofactors) and it’s effect on those bipolar persons that are primarily hypomanic or manic much of the time have failed. No one yet has looked at this possible breakthrough discovery that I made in the fall of 1997 in regard to what nutrients are often necessary in order to “slow the brain down”. The norm here, a norm that is unfortunately still true today, is that I am either labeled “manic delusional” for my claiming to have made any very significant discovery about manic depression (and I have made quite a few), or that I am just ignored.

I know the real truth partly as a result of my feeling at least 15 years younger physically than I did six years ago. My skin color is much better, my weight is 30 lbs. less, my muscles are and my skeletal frame are much stronger, and I have far more vitality than most persons who smoke cigarettes as much and as long as I have. My cigarette addiction I admittedly have yet to resolve. For me anyway, curing myself of manic depression is far easier that beating a heavy addiction to nicotine.

I know the real truth as the result of curing myself of both TMJ in my jawbone and also completely resolving a very arthritic and problematic back that bothered me greatly on a regular basis for almost 20 years. My back never bothers me at all now, a fact that never ceases to amaze me, as I had such serious back trouble for so long.

I know the real truth over the power of nutrients vs. meds partly as the result of my recommending a very similar nutrient regime to that which I use to control manic depression to help a person to resolve five years of fairly heavy heroin use, during which he nearly died three times (from overdose). What I gave this person nutrient-wise profoundly helped him from almost day one. Within a month he was a new man, with an aura of wellness and contentment that he hadn’t had in years. This event happened nearly two years ago, and this man is still clean (heroin free) today.

And most amazingly, I know the real truth as the result of discovering in late 1999 of how to intentionally induce a state of very severe depression with suicidial ideation attached in myself at will within three to four days or so by eating common foods that I am allergic to, and then learning how to adequately correct this suicidally depressed state within a matter of hours to at most a single day in myself. For other persons this nutritive and natural therapy may take a few days to a week. However, I can’t imagine the fairly comprehensive and all natural anti-depressive therapy that I am using taking much more than a week to have an amazingly positive effect on both mood and general well being in all but a small minority of persons (the few that are truly very ill).

Every day for over three years, if not closer to six, I wake up to the reality that it is entirely possible that, as a result of relying on a great deal of foundation work of many other persons, I may have developed some of the most accurate conceptual and practical insight into how to correct depression and manic depression to date. I say this despite the facts that (1) I am not a doctor, (2) I have almost no formal education beyond high school (despite being gifted), and (3) I still smoke cigarettes rather heavily. I do not claim perfection to anyone, but I sincerely apologize to all for not resolving my cigarette addiction, as this seriously damages my credibility on any health matters whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I also wake up to the reality that after spending perhaps as much as $200,000, if not more, in a search for answers concerning manic depression since July of 1994, my access to any sizable funds ran out in August of 2002. I now have to live on less than $800 a month net. Yet I morally cannot, and will not, take “a regular job” for greater fiscal gain. Nothing in this world means more to me but to do my best to do all that I can to attempt to end the enormous suffering that manic depression and depression causes. A regular job for fiscal gain would just interfere with this goal, as it would take up too much of my time and energy, time and energy that I have been freely giving for years to help all humankind.

Despite the above, I am not here with my hand out to ask for or to take anything at all. Money means almost nothing to me. I was a self-made millionaire once in my life, and I was so depressed I almost blew my brains out. Now I am healthy both mentally and physically. Other than retaining my own health and well being, only one other single thing really matters to me. This “other thing” is my seeing that answers that I may have discovered as a result of extraordinary effort since my diagnosis of bipolar disorder in June 1994 move forward as they should… such that many other persons are ultimately cured of manic depression without having to take nearly as long and hard a road as I had to travel in which to do so.

I sure could use some solid help from other intelligent persons with in regard to the answers that I have discovered in regarding to correcting depression within a matter of days, if not a matter of hours, in most persons so afflicted. I have been asking for this help for years, both inside the medical model and within the confines of alternative medicine. Thus far, my pleas for help with discoveries that I know to be significant have been to no avail. I have been repeatedly ignored by both allopathic and alternative medicine. The claims that I have been making since early 2000 in regard to the correction of severe depression in such a short time are perhaps just too extraordinary to be believed by anyone, yet I know in my heart that in essence these claims are absolutely true. Certainly, I might not be right about everything, and much of what I know could be easily improved on or refined. However, just as it stands the multi-stage natural anti-depressive therapy that I first discovered beginning in August of 1999 and had verified within months of its discovery is a very logical therapy. It is also a therapy that is based on much solid biological and scientific fact as well. In my opinion, this natural antidepressive therapy has also been anecdotally validated well enough at this point be worth a solid look at by at least some person or organizational body. It would certainly help if this person or organizational body had the ability to effect real change, as I am powerless by myself in this regard.

We humans appear to be very odd creatures… I just don’t understand why it is I that has been blessed with such extraordinary knowledge of how to correct depression and manic depression via natural means… and then I reach out to others for help to take a look at what I have discovered… and the end result is that I often just get either personally attacked or ignored… despite the fact that my heart is in the right place and I only want to help… and I have no agenda of enrichment or self aggrandizement whatsoever. I don’t mind a whit if my discoveries are plagiarized by others and/or I don’t receive either a dime or any credit whatsoever for them… as long these discoveries are validated and refined by a party capable of doing so… and then used to reduce much human suffering, as I am aware that they can.

Lastly, I pray that some day in the future the current medical model will not continue to ignore the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that has been generated for many years that the two biochemical issues of hidden food allergy and intestinal dysbiosis (which allopathic doctors often actually cause by the prescription of antibiotics) are often primary causative factors in depression, manic depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, alcoholism (and perhaps other substance abuse as well), fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraines, and a whole host of other physical and mental illnesses. I also pray that some day lessons such as those that I have learned in my recovery from over three decades of bipolar symptoms are not only actually heard, but that they are acted upon appropriately by someone, as well as acted upon appropriately by modern medical science.

Allen Darman

The post Bipolar Disorder – Natural Cure Testimonial appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

Use of a type of anti-depressant medication during pregnancy may increase the risk of a stillborn baby, research suggests.

A Canadian study of almost 5,000 mothers found those who used SSRIs were also more likely to have premature and low birth weight babies.
However experts said women should not stop taking medication without expert advice.

The study is published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The researchers, from the University of Ottawa, compared the health of babies born to 972 women taking SSRI anti-depressants with that of babies born to mothers who did not use anti-depressants.

SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors work by increasing levels of the mood chemical serotonin in the brain. They include Prozac.

The researchers found women using the drugs were twice as likely to have a stillbirth. They were also almost twice as likely to have a low birth weight baby.

Almost 20% of women who used SSRIs gave birth prematurely, compared to 12% of those who did not use the drugs.

Babies born to women using SSRIs were also more likely to have seizures.

Benefits and risks

The researchers said women should be fully briefed about the potential risk of SSRIs before taking a decision about whether or not to use them.
Charlotte Davies, of Tommy’s, the baby charity said pregnant women could opt for other types of anti-depressant medication.

She said: “Whilst this study has found a correlation between SSRIs and pregnancy complications, it has in no way confirmed a clear causal effect between the two, so pregnant women should continue taking their medication as normal.

“Left untreated, the physical and psychological effects of depression can lead to problems during pregnancy.
“Sufferers of depression are far more likely to smoke, as well as lose their appetites and in extreme cases are more likely to attempt suicide, which can all have devastating effects on mother and baby.”

Other doubts

Previous research has also raised doubts about the safety of using SSRIs while pregnant.
Last year Danish and US scientists found use of the drugs in the first three months of pregnancy was linked to a 40% increased risk of birth defects such as cleft palate.

That research also suggested that use of SSRIs in pregnancy raised the risk of a premature birth.

In a separate study, Spanish research found that babies whose mothers used SSRIs are at risk of being born with withdrawal symptoms.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has warned doctors not to prescribe most SSRI drugs, apart from Prozac, to children.
This followed evidence that use of the drugs in young people might increase the risk of suicidal behaviour.

A spokesman for Eli Lilly, which manufactures, Prozac said the company had never promoted the use of the drug for pregnant or nursing mothers.

Source: BBC News

The post Link Between Stillbirth and Anti-depressants appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

By Brooke A. Masters
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 6, 2006; Page D01

A New Jersey jury ordered Merck & Co. yesterday to pay $4.5 million in the case of a man who blamed the firm’s Vioxx painkiller for his heart attack, but rejected a similar claim from a second plaintiff who had taken the drug for less time and suffered less severe damage to his health.

The split verdict came in the fourth Vioxx-related lawsuit to go to a jury since Merck pulled the drug off the market in September 2004. The company said at the time that its studies had linked the use of Vioxx for 18 months to a heightened risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The Atlantic City jury found that Merck, the nation’s fourth-largest drugmaker, had failed to warn John McDarby and Thomas Cona that Vioxx might be linked to heart trouble but said the drug was a factor only in McDarby’s illness.

The trial was the first involving plaintiffs who said they had taken Vioxx for more than 18 months. Merck had won two of three previous cases, all of which involved short-term use.

Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck has been hit by more than 9,600 Vioxx lawsuits involving more than 19,000 plaintiff groups. But Merck has rejected calls for a blanket settlement, saying it handled the drug properly and that factors other than Vioxx caused the heart attacks and strokes at issue.

“Everyone thought that if we got to the long-term use cases it would clarify everything, but that was too simplistic,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl W. Tobias. “Merck now seems vindicated. It said it would fight [the cases] one by one, and there’s no reason to change that strategy now.” Merck has set aside $685 million to cover its legal costs.

The six women and two men on the Atlantic City jury heard evidence for about a month and deliberated for most of two days before reaching their split verdict.
They awarded $3 million to McDarby, 77, who had a heart attack, broke his hip and was hospitalized for three months in 2004 after using Vioxx for four years. His wife was awarded $1.5 million. McDarby had several serious risk factors for heart attacks, including his age and diabetes, and his lawyer Robert Gordon argued that McDarby’s doctor would not have prescribed Vioxx had he known of its connection to heart attacks and strokes.

“This is a victory for the 100,000 Americans who had heart attacks from Vioxx,” Gordon said in an e-mail after the verdict. “This is a victory for the tens of thousands of doctors Merck lied to. This is a victory for the civil justice system, which protects people from dangerous drugs because the [Food and Drug Administration] is bulldozed by the pharmaceutical industry.”

The jury will consider today whether to award punitive damages to McDarby, who still uses a wheelchair. Merck said in a written statement that it intends to “present evidence that shows the company submitted, to the FDA, information that was required concerning Vioxx” and therefore should not be further penalized. The company declined to comment further until the trial’s penalty phase is concluded.

The jury rejected a parallel claim from Cona, 60, who said he suffered a heart attack on the golf course after taking Vioxx for 22 months. Merck lawyers argued that his heart attack was so mild, he suffered no lasting effects and pointed out that he did not receive prescriptions for the full period. Cona contended that he used samples for the rest of the time. His lawyer, W. Mark Lanier, who won a $253 million judgment against Merck for a client in Texas, could not be reached for comment.

Merck shares were down $1.12, to $34.87, as of 7:59 p.m. in after-hours trading.

Source: Washingtonpost.com

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“I came across a book about the symptoms of adult ADHD and realized that I was reading my entire life,” she says. “I had a terrible childhood as a very wilful child and I always knew I was different. I could never socialize with people. I was disruptive at school and always flying into rages, which eventually led me into drug addiction as a way to escape what was a living hell.”

Anti-depressants did not help Mrs Fisher, who believes her condition led to her divorce six years ago, and she became increasingly desperate, unable to hold down jobs or relationships. “My erratic behaviour continued into adulthood but, up until reading that book, I didn’t know what was wrong with me.”

Mrs Fisher, a 33-year-old psychology student from Warminster, Wiltshire, diagnosed herself with ADHD after answering “yes” to a symptom checklist in the book, which included such questions as, “Are you moody?”, “Are you impulsive?” and “Do you procrastinate?”

Her GP referred her to a psychiatrist who confirmed her diagnosis and prescribed Ritalin, an amphetamine-based stimulant that improves concentration and has been nicknamed the “chemical cosh” because of its calming effects.

Mrs Fisher’s children, Jazmine, 12, and James, eight, were also diagnosed with ADHD, after showing symptoms of hyperactivity, inattention and unruly behaviour at school.

The family have taken Ritalin for the past three years and although Mrs Fisher still finds it difficult to work full time and receives financial help from her father, she claims that the drug has improved her children’s behaviour and “lifted a blanket of fog” from her mind.

She is not alone. Mrs Fisher is one of the growing number of adults who take prescription drugs for ADHD, which allegedly affects more than one million adults and 350,000 children in the UK, according to the National Attention Deficit Disorder Information and Support Service, or ADDISS.

There were a record number of prescriptions last year for methylphenidate – of which Ritalin is the most common brand – at a cost of £10 million to the NHS. Although 90 per cent of the 359,100 prescriptions were dispensed to children – a 180-fold increase since 1991, when just 2,000 were issued – adults are now a fast-growing area.

As with most health “fads”, it has crossed the Atlantic. Adult ADHD is already big business in America. A recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, which compared the behavioural patterns of 500 adults diagnosed with the condition with 500 adults without, claimed that eight million adults – almost four per cent of the population – may have the disorder.

More than 1.5 million adults in America are now using prescription drugs for ADHD, and a survey there last month found that the use of prescription drugs to treat the condition is growing at double the rate among adults than among children.

All this is excellent news for drug companies such as Shire Pharmaceuticals, a British company that manufactures Adderall, a drug similar to Ritalin and used to treat ADHD. Matthew Emmens, Shire’s chief executive, believes that “the adult market is three times the size of the £1.14 billion-a-year children’s market and is ripe and moving in the right direction”.

Andrea Bilbow, the chief executive of ADDISS, said last week: “Whereas a few years ago we would receive a few calls a week from adults, we now get up to 10 calls a day from people who have experienced behavioural problems, read literature on the subject and believe they may have the condition.”

ADDISS, a charity run by unpaid volunteers but which also receives funding from drug companies who make ADHD drugs, claims that up to five per cent of schoolchildren suffer from ADHD and that
70 per cent of these continue the symptoms into adulthood. Miss Bilbow believes that “the myth that you turn 12 and it disappears” is finally being addressed. “As awareness grows and more adult psychiatrists come to accept the condition, I think we will see diagnoses and treatment through medication explode.”

Philip Asherson, a professor of molecular psychiatry at King’s College, London, runs an adult ADHD clinic at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, south London, one of only two such NHS clinics in the country. It is expanding to cope with the rise in demand.
Since the clinic opened in 1994, Prof Asherson has seen patient numbers soar from a “steady trickle of a few patients a month, to 11 new patients a week”, many of whom wait for more than a year to see him. The majority are prescribed with methylphenidate drugs, but he concedes that self-diagnosis of adult ADHD through literature checklists is “a growing concern”.

“There is always the danger that somebody can pick up a list of questions and say, “I have those symptoms, so I must have ADHD”, which is why consultations are necessary.”
Dr Jonathan Dowson, a consultant psychiatrist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, heads the other NHS adult ADHD clinic. “There is a growing demand for consultations and I am seeing more people through self-referral or who have children with the syndrome and think they may have the same problem,” he said.

There are no medical tests for ADHD and adults are evaluated on a range of factors, including their childhood behavioural history and questionnaires asking if they suffer from restlessness, lack of organisation and poor time management. Or, as critics of the growing ADHD “industry” put it, reasonably normal behaviour.

Professor Peter Hill, an adolescent psychiatrist and ADHD specialist, believes that the explosion in the number of adults seeking medical treatment for these “symptoms” is in danger of changing the view of the condition. “Most of my patients do not continue their symptoms into adulthood, and very few require medication beyond adolescence,” he says.

“ADHD is a developmental condition that gets better as you get older and I think it is terribly important to stress that. The American concept is to see it as something that never goes away, but I do not think that is the case and I have seen no evidence to support that theory.”

Others in the medical profession go even farther, expressing deep scepticism about the very existence of ADHD as a medical condition. Some liken the rise of Ritalin to that of Prozac, the wonder drug of the 1980s and 1990s that was supposed to bring medicated peace to millions of depressed minds. Only later did studies link the drug to suicide and violence, charges that
Eli Lilly, its manufacturer, continues to reject.

Dr Sami Timimi, an adolescent psychiatrist based in Lincolnshire and a campaigner against the use of drugs for behavioural disorders, says the medical treatment of anti-social behaviour is “a scandal”, with adult ADHD fast becoming a “new social health fad”.

“During the 1990s, we saw melancholy and the normal ups and downs of everyday life increasingly diagnosed as clinical depression, and taking Prozac was considered a trendy and easy way of dealing with emotions like unhappiness and anxiety,” he says.

“If Ritalin, which is chemically similar to speed, continues to be prescribed for adults who feel they are a bit disorganised, it will become a lifestyle drug for perfectly healthy adults who want an extra hand with the growing demands of daily life.

“ADHD does not exist in children and certainly doesn’t exist in adults. Mood swings, forgetfulness and disorganisation are common behavioural patterns in every human being and it is ludicrous that they are now being diagnosed as symptoms for a medical condition.”

Dr Timimi believes that an increased awareness and acceptance of adult ADHD provides some doctors with the opportunity to raise their profile and help them secure funding from drugs companies eager to get a foothold in the British market.

“This so-called condition is new territory for psychiatrists who can make a name for themselves through labelling and medicating people’s problems, instead of investigating the real root causes and considering alternative treatment, such as therapy,” he says. “Doctors who prescribe drugs in these situations give scientific legitimacy for pharmacological solutions to life’s normal stresses, and research grants from drug companies are more likely to go to those doctors than to the sceptical clinicians.”

Dr Timimi believes that not enough people are aware of the potential health risks and side-effects associated with Ritalin, which include insomnia, psychosis and loss of appetite.
Although little research has been carried out into the drug’s long-term effects, a recent report in America found that Ritalin may cause lasting changes to the brain. In the study, carried out by the Harvard Medical School, healthy rats given the drug in their infancy were found to have a reduced sense of pleasure and were more prone to signs of despair during adulthood.

It was these lasting changes to the brain that convinced John Slater – not his real name – to come off his medication after being diagnosed with ADHD. Mr Slater, a 46-year-old marketing manager from Exeter, was prescribed with Dexadrine, a stimulant similar to Ritalin, which he took for 18 months.

“The drugs made me more aggressive and I realised that they were permanently altering my sense of who I was,” he says. “Life is still difficult –
I am forgetful and prone to mood swings – but I have learnt to live with my symptoms, which is a far better alternative to medication.”

Janice Hill, the founder of the Overload Network, a charity that campaigns against the prescription of drugs for behavioural disorders, believes that the lure of cash benefits is leading more adults to seek the ADHD diagnosis.

Children or adults who can prove, by providing medical references, that ADHD severely affects either their mobility or care requirements,
can apply for a disability living allowance from the Department for
Work and Pensions, worth up to £60 per week.

“If adults with behavioural problems think that they might be entitled to this allowance, they are going to look for the diagnosis to plead their case,” she says.”Of course, some adults do have difficulties but the alternatives to drugs, such as cognitive behavioural therapy and anger-management courses are very effective. Life is not a disorder that needs medicating.”

Pay attention now…
Although there is no standard test for the disorder, here are some typical questions asked of adults during a diagnosis. The more questions that are answered ‘yes’, the more likely it is that a person has ADHD, according to psychiatrists.
1. Are you moody?

2. Were you considered an under-achiever at school? Now?
3. Do you have trouble getting started on things?
4. Do you drum your fingers a lot, tap your feet, or fidget?
5. When you read, do you find that you often have to re-read a paragraph or an entire page because you are daydreaming?
6. Do you ‘tune out’ or ‘space out’ a lot?

7. Do you have a hard time relaxing?
8. Are you impulsive?
9. Are you easily distracted?
10. Is your memory so porous that if you go from one room to the next to get something, you’ve sometimes forgotten what you’re looking for?
11. Do you change the radio station in your car frequently?

12. Do you change TV stations frequently?
13. More than most people, do you hate queuing?
14. Do you have a hair-trigger temper?
15. Do you frequently resolve to organise your life better, only to find that you’re always on the brink of chaos?
16. Would you consider yourself an addictive personality?

17. Are you more flirtatious that you really mean to be?
18. Do you find it hard to be alone?
19. Have you changed jobs a lot?
20. Are you smarter than you’re able to demonstrate?
21. Are you particularly insecure?

22. Do you have trouble keeping secrets?
23. Do you love to travel?
24. Do you laugh a lot?
25. Did you have trouble paying attention long enough to read this entire questionnaire?

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

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Matt Lauer: Anything at all interesting happening in your life these days?

Tom Cruise: Well, you know, same old, same old.

Lauer: Same old you know what?

Cruise: Same old you know what.

Lauer: How are you handling this? I mean every magazine, every newspaper, and every entertainment show. What’s it like for you to be living through this right now?

Cruise: I have to tell you. It’s just a great time in my life. I’m really happy. And, you know, I’m engaged. I’m going to be married. I can’t restrain myself.

Lauer: It’s like you’ve got two little cords on your mouth and you can’t stop smiling. I was thinking about it. On the one hand, it’s got to be a little hard to see yourself everywhere, splashed across the pages. Another aspect of this, though, is, how many actors 20-something years into a career can generate this kind of interest still?

Cruise: You know, I just do what I do. I love making movies. And I feel privileged to be able to do that, always. And it’s something that — I’m just living my life, you know.

Lauer: We talk about life in a second. Let’s talk about the movie, though. Okay, “War of the Worlds.” I mean, I’ve always been fascinated by this whole concept, the “we are not alone in a big way,” concept. Do you remember your first exposure to it, to the story?

Cruise: I remember, I was a kid. And I heard about the Orson Wells radio play. It was my first exposure to this story.

Lauer: This is not just an alien movie. The story breaks down on a lot of different levels. And on one of the levels, your character is a father?

Cruise: Mm-hmm.

Lauer: Not the best father in the world.

Cruise: Mm-hmm.

Lauer: Tell me how that plays into this whole scenario.

Cruise: When we were working on this story three years ago, [director] Steven [Spielberg] and I came up with this idea of making it about a family. And so now, he is forced in these circumstances to rise to the occasion. Will he rise to the occasion? And I just think it’s very human. I think the — you know, you’re a father.

Lauer: Sure.

Cruise: I’m a father, you know. I always wanted to be a father. Remember when you first held your child? It’s like wow, tremendous sense of responsibility.

Lauer: Life-changing.

Cruise: Yeah. And we talk about it. But not until you experience it can you really know it. We wanted to imbue the story with that journey.

Lauer: Is this a scary movie in the traditional sense of Hollywood scary?

Cruise: I think it’s Spielbergian scary.

Lauer: Is that a word?

Cruise: It now is. I think, you know, I tease him. ‘Cause I say, I know your movies better than you [do]. You know, I studied his edits so many times. I’ve studied his movies. And having worked with him, it’s not analytical. He’s just creating. And he has tremendous power because he understands the medium. And he’s just that great, great, great storyteller. I think he’s the greatest storyteller cinema has ever known.

Lauer: Let’s talk about selling this movie. You’ve just toured around the world, getting the story of “War of the Worlds” out there. And at the same time, you’ve got this great thing happening in your personal life that has become the subject of so many headlines and stories.

Cruise: Really?

Lauer: Yeah. From what I’ve seen. You want to count? Three thousand, four hundred and four.

Cruise: Are you serious?

Lauer: No. Made that up. Is there any fear in your part that what happens personally overshadows the movie?

Cruise: Nah, it never does.

Lauer: Has it helped the movie?

Cruise: I don’t know. You know what? It comes down to the movie. It always comes down to the movie.

Lauer: You are being so much more open. You’ve been on this show in the past at times where you were in other relationships. And I’d kind of broach the subject of a personal life. And you would very gingerly steer it away. That was how we came to know Tom Cruise. And now, you’re saying, “You know what? I’m okay with it.” So, it does seem like a different guy.

Cruise: Yeah. But they’re still writing it. You got to understand. All that stuff, they’d still write it. They’d still talk about it. And the thing is, I still feel I will talk about what I feel, what I want to talk about.

Lauer: Right.

Cruise: And I won’t talk about what I don’t want to talk about. And it just doesn’t matter. It comes down to the movie, you know. And I also feel, Matt, I’m living my life. And I feel fortunate, you know. I feel really fortunate. And I’m excited.

Lauer: You just said something that made me think about something. And if you get out there and talk about it, it kind of takes away a lot of their power to make stuff up. Doesn’t it? Because you’re telling the real story. Where does it leave them to go?

Cruise: Yeah. But here’s the point. I don’t even get into that game. I’m just living my life, Matt. It’s something that — I mean, I’m living my life. And I’m doing the best that I can, and doing it in a way that I feel is right. I like hearing good news, you know. I like hearing, you know, if something good happens to you, it’s nice. I like sitting here talking to you.

Lauer: If you like hearing it, you must want to share it, too.

Cruise: Yeah.

Lauer: So, when you hear the cynics, Mr. Cruise, and you’ve heard ’em, who say, “This is publicity for a movie, this relationship,” or “This is Tom Cruise in his 40s trying to become or stay relevant for a younger audience, and that’s why he’s out there talking about this relationship with this lovely young lady,” who happens to be sitting right over there. How do you respond to that?

Cruise: You know what? There’s always cynics. There always has been. There always will be.

Lauer: You laugh about it, or does it just bug you?

Cruise: No. I have never worried, Matt, about what other people think and what other people say.

Lauer: Katie, close your ears for a second, okay? You have said that Katie is the real thing. She is sensational, she is magnificent. Can you explain to me what she’s brought to your life that hasn’t been brought to your life in the past?

Cruise: I don’t want to compare things. I just say—

Lauer: I know—

Cruise: No, no, no. Because, you know, it — but what it is, it’s that thing where you just — in life, when it just happens, Matt. You know? It just — you meet someone. And it’s — I can’t even describe it.

Lauer: Katie has mentioned that she is embracing, or at least exposing herself and opening herself up to, Scientology. At this stage in your life, could you be with someone who doesn’t have an interest?

Cruise: You know, Scientology is something that you don’t understand. It’s like, you could be a Christian and be a Scientologist, okay. Scientology is something—

Lauer: So, it doesn’t replace religion.

Cruise: It is a religion. Because it’s dealing with the spirit. You as a spiritual being. It gives you tools you can use to apply to your life.

We asked Cruise to explain his recent comments regarding Brooke Shields. Cruise created a firestorm when he criticized Shields for revealing that she went into therapy and took antidepressants to deal with her postpartum depression. Cruise has said that, as a Scientologist, he doesn’t believe in psychiatric medicine.

Cruise: I’ve never agreed with psychiatry, ever. Before I was a Scientologist I never agreed with psychiatry. And when I started studying the history of psychiatry, I understood more and more why I didn’t believe in psychology.

And as far as the Brooke Shields thing, look, you got to understand, I really care about Brooke Shields. I think, here’s a wonderful and talented woman. And I want to see her do well. And I know that psychiatry is a pseudo science.

Lauer: But Tom, if she said that this particular thing helped her feel better, whether it was the antidepressants or going to a counselor or psychiatrist, isn’t that enough?

Cruise: Matt, you have to understand this. Here we are today, where I talk out against drugs and psychiatric abuses of electric shocking people, okay, against their will, of drugging children with them not knowing the effects of these drugs. Do you know what Aderol is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know now that Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?

Lauer: The difference is —

Cruise: No, no, Matt.

Lauer: This wasn’t against her will, though.

Cruise: Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt —

Lauer: But this wasn’t against her will.

Cruise: Matt, I’m asking you a question.

Lauer: I understand there’s abuse of all of these things.

Cruise: No, you see. Here’s the problem. You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.

Lauer: Aren’t there examples, and might not Brooke Shields be an example, of someone who benefited from one of those drugs?

Cruise: All it does is mask the problem, Matt. And if you understand the history of it, it masks the problem. That’s what it does. That’s all it does. You’re not getting to the reason why. There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.

Lauer: So, postpartum depression to you is kind of a little psychological gobbledygook —

Cruise: No. I did not say that.

Lauer: I’m just asking what you, what would you call it?

Cruise: No. No. Abso— Matt, now you’re talking about two different things.

Lauer: But that’s what she went on the antidepressant for.

Cruise: But what happens, the antidepressant, all it does is mask the problem. There’s ways, [with] vitamins and through exercise and various things… I’m not saying that that isn’t real. That’s not what I’m saying. That’s an alteration of what I’m saying. I’m saying that drugs aren’t the answer, these drugs are very dangerous. They’re mind-altering, antipsychotic drugs. And there are ways of doing it without that so that we don’t end up in a brave new world. The thing that I’m saying about Brooke is that there’s misinformation, okay. And she doesn’t understand the history of psychiatry. She doesn’t understand in the same way that you don’t understand it, Matt.

Lauer: But a little bit of what you’re saying Tom is, you say you want people to do well. But you want them do to well by taking the road that you approve of, as opposed to a road that may work for them.

Cruise: No, no, I’m not.

Lauer: Well, if antidepressants work for Brooke Shields, why isn’t that okay?

Cruise: I disagree with it. And I think that there’s a higher and better quality of life. And I think that, promoting — for me personally, see, you’re saying what, I can’t discuss what I wanna discuss?

Lauer: No. You absolutely can.

Cruise: I know. But Matt, you’re going in and saying that, that I can’t discuss this.

Lauer: I’m only asking, isn’t there a possibility that — do you examine the possibility that these things do work for some people? That yes, there are abuses. And yes, maybe they’ve gone too far in certain areas. Maybe there are too many kids on Ritalin. Maybe electric shock —

Cruise: Too many kids on Ritalin? Matt.

Lauer: I’m just saying. But aren’t there examples where it works?

Cruise: Matt. Matt, Matt, you don’t even — you’re glib. You don’t even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, okay? That’s what I’ve done. Then you go and you say where’s the medical test? Where’s the blood test that says how much Ritalin you’re supposed to get?

Lauer: It’s very impressive to listen to you. Because clearly, you’ve done the homework. And you know the subject.

Cruise: And you should. And you should do that also. Because just knowing people who are on Ritalin isn’t enough. You should be a little bit more responsible in knowing really —

Lauer: I’m not prescribing Ritalin, Tom. And I’m not asking anyone else to do it. I’m simply saying, I know some people who seem to have been helped by it.

Cruise: But you’re saying this is a very important issue.

Lauer: I couldn’t agree more.

Cruise: It’s very — and you know what? You’re here on the “Today” show.

Lauer: Right.

Cruise: And to talk about it in a way of saying, “Well, isn’t it okay,” and being reasonable about it when you don’t know and I do, I think that you should be a little bit more responsible in knowing what it is.

Lauer: But —

Cruise: Because you communicate to people.

Lauer: But you’re now telling me that your experiences with the people I know, which are zero, are more important than my experiences.

Cruise: What do you mean by that?

Lauer: You’re telling me what’s worked for people I know or hasn’t worked for people I know. I’m telling you, I’ve lived with these people and they’re better.

Cruise: So, you’re advocating it.

Lauer: I am not. I’m telling you in their case, in their individual case, it worked. I am not gonna go out and say, “Get your kids on Ritalin. It’s the cure-all and the end-all.”

Cruise: Matt, but here’s the point. What is the ideal scene for life? Okay. The ideal scene is someone not having to take antipsychotic drugs.

Lauer: I would agree.

Cruise: Okay. So, now you look at a departure from that ideal scene, is someone taking drugs, okay. And then you go, okay. What is the theory and the science behind that, that justifies that?

Lauer: Let me take this more general, because I think you and I can go around in circles on this for awhile. And I respect your opinion. Do you want more people to understand Scientology? Would that be a goal of yours?

Cruise: You know what? Absolutely. Of course, you know.

Lauer: How do you go about that?

Cruise: You just communicate about it. And the important thing is, like you and I talk about it, whether it’s okay, if I want to know something, I go and find out. Because I don’t talk about things that I don’t understand. I’ll say, you know what? I’m not so sure about that. I’ll go find more information about it so I can come to an opinion based on the information that I have.

Lauer: You’re so passionate about it.

Cruise: I’m passionate about learning. I’m passionate about life, Matt.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

The post Actor Tom Cruise Talks With ‘Today’ Host Matt Lauer About His Love, Movie And His Recent Comments About Psychiatry appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

Nowhere in the rest of medicine has such a proliferation of categories occurred. The reason for this difference between psychiatry and other medical specialties has more to do with ideology than with science. A brief peek at both areas makes this point clear. All medicine rests on the premise that disease is a manifestation of diseased tissue. Hepatitis comes down to an inflamed liver, while lung tissue infiltrated with pneumococcus causes pneumonia. Every medical student learns this principle. Where, though, is the diseased tissue in psychopathological conditions?

Unlike the rest of medicine, psychiatry diagnoses behavior that society doesn’t like. Yesterday it was homosexuality. Tomorrow it will be homophobia. Someone who declares himself the messiah, who insists that fluorescent lights talk to him or declares that she’s the Virgin Mary, is an example of such behavior. Such people are deemed — labeled, really — sick by psychiatrists, and often they are taken off to hospitals against their will. The “diagnosis” of such “pathological behavior” is based on social, political or aesthetic values.

This is confusing. Behavior cannot be pathological (or healthy, for that matter). It can simply comport with, or not comport with, our nonmedical expectations of how people should behave. Analogously, brains that produce weird or obnoxious behaviors are not diseased. They are brains that produce atypical behaviors (which could include such eccentricities as dyed hair or multiple piercings or tattoos that nobody in their right mind could find attractive).

Lest one think that such a view is the rant of a Scientologist, it is no such thing. Scientology offers polemic to lull the faithful into belief. Doctors and philosophers offer argument to provoke debate.

It’s a natural step from using social and political standards to create a psychiatric diagnosis to using them to influence public policy. Historically, that influence has appeared most dramatically in the insanity defense. Remember Dan White, the man who murdered San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978? Or John Hinckley, who shot President Reagan in 1981? Or Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon? White, whose psychiatrist came up with the “Twinkie defense” — the high sugar content of White’s favorite junk food may have fueled his murderous impulses — was convicted and paroled after serving five years, only to commit suicide a year later.

The erosion of personal responsibility is, arguably, the most pernicious effect of the expansive role psychiatry has come to play in American life. It has successfully replaced huge chunks of individual accountability with diagnoses, clinical histories and what turn out to be pseudoscientific explanations for deviant behavior.

Pathology has replaced morality. Treatment has supplanted punishment. Imprisonment is now hospitalization. From the moral self-castigation we find in the writings of John Adams, we have been drawn to Woody Allen-style neuroses. Were the psychiatric association to scrutinize itself more deeply and reconsider its expansionist diagnostic programs, it would, hopefully, make a positive contribution to our culture by not turning the good and bad into the healthy and the sick.

The last thing the United States needs is more self-indulgent, pseudo-insightful, overly self-conscious babble about people who can’t help themselves. Better, as Voltaire would put it, to cultivate our gardens and be accountable for who and what we are.

By Irwin Savodnik, Irwin Savodnik is a psychiatrist and philosopher who teaches at UCLA.

The post Psychiatry’s Sick Compulsion – Turning Weaknesses Into Diseases appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

“Food can have an immediate and lasting effect on mental health and behaviour because of the way it affects the structure and function of the brain,” Sustain’s report says. Its chairman, Tim Lang, said: “Mental health has been completely neglected by those working on food policy. If we don’t address it and change the way we farm and fish, we may lose the means to prevent much diet-related ill health.”

Both reports, which have been produced collaboratively, outline the growing scientific evidence linking poor diet to problems of behaviour and mood. Rates of depression have been shown to be higher in countries with low intakes of fish, for example. Lack of folic acid, omega-3 fatty acids, selenium and the amino acid tryptophan are thought to play an important role in the illness. Deficiencies of essential fats and antioxidant vitamins are also thought to be a contributory factor in schizophrenia.

A pioneering nutrition and mental health programme, thought to be the only one of its kind in Britain, was carried out at Rotherham, South Yorkshire. According to Caroline Stokes, its research nutritionist, the mental health patients she saw generally had the poorest diets she had ever come across. “They are eating lots of convenience foods, snacks, takeaways, chocolate bars, crisps. It’s very common for clients to be drinking a litre or two of cola a day. They get lots of sugar but a lot of them are eating only one portion of fruit or vegetable a day, if that.”

The therapy includes omega-3 fatty acids and multivitamins, with advice on cutting out junk food and replacing it with oily fish, leafy vegetables for folic acid, Brazil nuts for selenium, and food providing tryptophan.

Some patients who resist treatment with drugs accept nutritional therapy and most have reported an improvement in mood and energy. Ms Stokes said: “Within the first month there’s been a significant reduction in depression. We’ve had letters from [the patients’] psychiatrists saying they can see a huge difference.”

One sufferer who benefited from a dietary change was James McLean, who was at university when first diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression). After he had been sectioned repeatedly, his father read about the role of nutrition in mental health. The pair went privately to the Brain Bio Centre, in London, where Mr McLean’s nutrient levels were checked; he was allergic to gluten and yeast and was given supplements, including vitamin B and essential fatty acids.

“I’d been eating lots of intense carbohydrate foods … because they were cheap, and very little fruit or vegetables,” Mr McLean said. Now, he excludes wheat from his diet too. He added: “I have more energy and confidence, I sleep better, and I came off the anti-psychotic drugs, although I still take mood stabilising ones.”

Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, acknowledged that mental illness results from a complex interplay of biological, social, psychological and environmental factors, but thought diet should be an everyday component of mental health care. “It costs £1,000 a week to keep someone in a psychiatric hospital. How much does good food cost? We need mentally healthy school meals, and mentally healthy hospital foods,” he said.

Best choices and worst:

Good for the brain:

Vegetables, especially leafy
Seeds and nuts
Fruit
Whole grains
Wheatgerm

Organic eggs
Organic farmed or wild fish, especially fatty fish

Bad for the brain:

Deep fried junk foods
Refined processed foods

Pesticides
Alcohol
Sugar
Tea and coffee
Some additives

Felicity Lawrence

Monday January 16, 2006
The Guardian

The post Rise In Mental Illness Linked To Unhealthy Diets, Say Studies appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

In this issue, Kaplan and colleagues (1) describe an open trial of the first 14 adults with bipolar disorder treated with this nutritional supplement, which consists of a broad range of minerals and vitamins, plus 3 amino acids and several antioxidants. Symptom reductions were clinically noted within 2 weeks and sustained over 6 months of observation. All outcome measures showed significant improvements (55% to 66% symptom reduction), and a strong effect size (> .80) was observed for ratings of depression as well as mania. Most patients could reduce their doses of psychiatric medications, and some patients became stable without any psychiatric medication. Only 2 patients started on new medications that might conceivably have contributed to their stabilization. Even allowing for the usual overestimation of effects in open-label series, these preliminary findings raise interesting questions about nutrition-behavior interactions.

In view of the 50 years of experience with lithium, the notion that minerals can treat bipolar disorder is unsurprising. However, the nutrient supplement studied by Kaplan and colleagues contains no lithium. Might other dietary nutrients have mood-stabilizer properties?

Some may object that a clinical trial of a mixture of ingredients is inherently unscientific: How can one know which ingredient is the active one, whether a smaller number of ingredients will have the same clinical effect, or whether the same ingredients are active in different patients? These questions will become worth pursuing once it has been formally determined whether the mixture, handed down from animal husbandry as a single entity, works in humans. Kaplan’s open-label report justifies her now ongoing controlled study, whose outcome appropriately precedes pursuing questions of mechanism of action (2) and parsimony.

Even so, it is difficult to avoid speculating about possible mechanisms. Might minerals serve as catalysts for enzymes involved in neurotransmitter metabolism, change drug biotransformation, modify membrane receptors or channels, influence second or third messenger systems, or alter gene expression? Lithium, a single cation, has spawned a minor industry of investigations into mechanisms of action, and the possibilities if there were numerous interacting micronutrients (the collective term for minerals and vitamins) are staggering.

My interest in this nutrient mixture was initially sparked by a case in my clinical practice. A 10-year-old with bipolar disorder was referred for treatment of severe temper tantrums, which had lasted for 2 to 4 hours daily for 4 months. The well-nourished child had no prior psychiatric history or treatment. After 2 days on the Hardy-Stephan nutrient regimen, his tantrums showed significant improvement, with the father-psychiatrist reporting a “complete” absence of outbursts or even irritability at 5 days. After 2 weeks, the available supply of the nutrient supplement was exhausted, and tantrums returned within 48 hours. A similar supplement, containing most of the same ingredients, was then started and produced a moderate improvement, which parents and teachers estimated as 60% of the original effect. When restarted on the original formula, the symptoms were judged to have again responded completely. This naturalistic A-B-A-C-B trial caught my attention because of the full stabilization without psychiatric medications and the absence of observed adverse effects.

I proceeded to cautiously conduct additional trials of the Hardy-Stephan nutrient supplement. Among 22 patients (10 adults, 9 adolescents, 3 preadolescents) who clinically met criteria for bipolar disorder, 19 showed what I judged to be a positive response (2 mild, 7 moderate, 10 marked improvement). Among the 15 patients who were being treated with medications when they began the nutritional supplement, 11 patients have been stable for 6 to 9 months without psychiatric medications. These observations are consistent with Kaplan’s open-label findings, but leave questions of safety unresolved.

Nausea was the main adverse effect in Kaplan’s study. In the larger anecdotal experience of Hardy and Stephan and my limited clinical observations, loose stools and headache were common. Diarrhea, vomiting, flatulence, and agitation were less common. Classical symptoms of mineral or vitamin toxicity were not encountered, but might have emerged with lengthier treatment or more systematic observation.

The Hardy-Stephan supplement contains many nutrients at high doses relative to the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA), but these RDA levels were primarily established to prevent deficiency disorders in the general population. A broader range of vitamin and mineral functions (3,4) are considered in formulating the newer daily intake standards, which vary widely because of different criteria for adequacy and different health goals. (5) Although most ingredients in the nutrient supplement studied by Kaplan and colleagues appear well within safe limits, any multi – ingredient treatment might have toxic effects that cannot be readily predicted from its individual components. Even though it contains only “natural” ingredients and is not under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) purview, the Hardy-Stephan nutrient supplement should be examined in controlled empirical research – just as new pharmacologic agents are – to properly assess adverse effects and potential risks.

Psychiatrists do not normally think of vitamins or minerals as modifiers of the effects of psychiatric medications, but the early anecdotal experience with this nutrient supplement suggests that there may be strong micronutrient-medication interactions. This mineral-vitamin supplement seems to generally potentiate the clinical properties of psychiatric drugs. Most patients in the Kaplan et al. study could be managed with less medication after the nutrient supplement was added. To avoid medication toxicity, Hardy and Stephan have suggested to patients’ psychiatrists that the doses of psychiatric medications be rapidly reduced shortly after the nutrient supplement is initiated. In my observations, transitioning patients from medications to micronutrients is exceedingly tricky to manage. Introducing micronutrients too quickly can increase the adverse effects of medications, including agitation, while withdrawing psychiatric medications too quickly can result in symptom exacerbation. Often, both increased adverse effects and symptom resurgence are seen at once. Much more data are needed about how to “transition” patients who are currently taking psychiatric medications. Although it appears less difficult to treat medication-naive patients (such as my 10-year-old patient), the transition from psychiatric medications to micronutrients can require genuine technical savvy-even for patients who have not taken such medications for several weeks or months. Clinicians who mistakenly approach these new findings as encouragement to combine micronutrients with psychiatric medications may find that they have stepped into a serious quagmire.

Although health food advocates have made numerous claims without scientific documentation, nutritional influences on mental illness have received considerable research attention, (6) some of which is quite rigorous and promising. Andrew Stoll’s research on omega-3 fatty acids for bipolar disorder (7,8) and Eugene Arnold’s work on omega-6 fatty acids for attention deficit disorder (9-11) suggest that these nutrients might themselves be therapeutic. Other micronutrients (calcium, chromium) and macronutrients (inositol, amino acids) have also shown some potential for influencing mood disorders. (12-15) Arnold’s recent findings suggest that relative zinc deficiency might explain why some patients with ADHD do not show a more robust response to psychostimulants. (9)

Several large-scale double-blind placebo-controlled studies of RDA or high-dose multivitamin regimens in adults have reported improved scores of mood and cognition (16,17) as well as anxiety and somatic symptoms. (18) A recent review reported that 10 of 12 randomized double-blind placebo- controlled studies found that multi-micronutrient regimens can improve cognitive functioning in children. (19) However, high-dose multivitamin treatments have not been found to be effective in children with ADHD or learning disorders. (11,20)

Speculatively, there is a great deal to learn about minerals and vitamins in psychiatric pathophysiology and psychopharmacology. It is intriguing that many of the enzymes proposed as target sites of lithium action are metalloenzymes that are noncompetitively inhibited by lithium, which probably acts by displacing the divalent cation. (21) Why would supplementation with divalent cations have a therapeutic effect? Do we know enough about complex intracellular regulatory interactions to answer this question? Individual micronutrients will need to be examined in combination with lithium, but it is unlikely that the physiology will be so simplistic and dyadic. The groundbreaking approach of examining several nutrient ingredients at once, while a violation of our usual tenets of investigation, may present an opportunity to examine how micronutrients might operate in concert.

Assessing the safety and efficacy of multinutrient formulas will require considerable research. Developing dose-effect curves for each micronutrient, and examining all possible combinations of micronutrients, will be a horrifically large task. (22) Many years will be required to arrive at a formula that is optimal for the general population, but it is more likely there will eventually be different formulas whose safety and efficacy are optimized to the metabolic requirements of treating different disorders, different individuals, different ages, and different comorbid health situations.

The possibility of a nutritional alternative to drug treatment may raise hope and carry the risk of igniting public interest beyond reasonable bounds. Some patients may find it difficult to wait for nutrient supplements to be examined in humans for both efficacy and safety in controlled trials, and clinicians will need to help patients keep their enthusiasm from pushing usage beyond its scientific basis. Similarly, clinicians will want to think twice if they are tempted to forge ahead with empirical trials of this novel treatment with possible unknown risks and unproven benefit. Some physicians, presuming a low risk of toxicity, may reason that it is judicious to allow some drug-naive patients to proceed with empirical trials of nutrient supplements for a few weeks before committing them to treatment with psychiatric medications. Most clinicians will want the reassurance of systematic safety data before beginning to examine its effects in patients. Clinicians will hopefully minimize risks of nutrient-medication interactions by initially restricting their trials to patients who have not recently used psychiatric medications.

If Kaplan and colleagues’ preliminary findings are confirmed in controlled research, and if safety studies are favorable, what then? What if some psychiatric patients could be treated with inexpensive vitamins and minerals rather than expensive patented pharmaceuticals? or what if some doses of psychiatric drugs could be reduced by the concurrent use of nutrients? The economic implications, for individual patients and for the pharmaceutical industry, are difficult to overlook. For now, micronutrient treatments and other nutritional approaches remain in a very early stage of scientific investigation. Depending on how this line of research develops, clinicians and researchers may need to rethink the traditional bias against nutritional supplementation as a potential treatment for major psychiatric disorders.

Charles W. Popper, M.D.
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
Dec 2001

REFERENCES

1. Kaplan BJ, Simpson JSA, Ferre RC, et al. Effective mood stabilization with a chelated mineral supplement: an open-label trial in bipolar disorder. J Clin Psychiatry 2001;62:936-944

2. Shaldubina A, Agam G, Belmaker RH. The mechanism of lithium action: state of the art, ten years later. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 2001;25:855-866

3. Mertz W. A perspective on mineral standards. J Nutr 1998:128(suppl 2): 375S-378S

4. Cashman KD, Flynn A. Optimal nutrition: calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. Proc Nutr Soc 1999;58:477-487

5. Mertz W. Three decades of dietary recommendations. Nutr Rev 2000;58: 324-331

6. Werbach MR. Nutritional Influences on Mental Illness: A Sourcebook of Clinical Research. 2nd ed. Tarzana, Calif: Third Line Press; 1999

7. Stoll AL, Locke CA, Marangell LB, et al, Omega-3 fatty acids and bipolar disorder: a review. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids 1999;60: 329-337

8. Stoll AL, Severus E, Freeman MP, et al. Omega 3 fatty acids in bipolar disorder: a preliminary double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1999;56:407-412

9. Arnold LE, Pinkham SM, Votolato N. Does zinc moderate essential fatty acid and amphetamine treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol 2000;10:111-117

10. Arnold LE. Alternative treatments for adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In: Wasserstein J, Wolfe LE, Lefever FF, eds. Adult Attention Deficit Disorders: Brain Mechanisms and Life Outcomes. New York, NY. New York Academy of Sciences; 2001:310-341

11. Arnold LE. Treatment alternatives for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In: Jensen PS, Cooper J, eds. Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD: An Evidence-Based Approach. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. In press

12. Levy NA, Janicak PG. Calcium channel antagonists for the treatment of bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disord 2000;2:108-119

13. McLeod MN, Golden RN. Chromium treatment of depression. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 2000;3:311-314

14. Chengappa KN, Levine J, Gershon S, et al. Inositol as an add-on treatment for bipolar depression. Bipolar Disord 2000;2:47-55

15. Van der Does AJ. The effects of tryptophan depletion on mood and psychiatric symptoms. J Affect Disord 2001;64:107-119

16. Benton D, Fordy J, Haller J. The impact of long-term vitamin supplementation on cognitive functioning. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1995; 117: 298-305

17. Benton D, Haller J, Fordy J. Vitamin supplementation for 1 year improves mood. Neuropsychobiology 1995;32:98-105

18. Carroll D, Ring C, Suter M, et al. The effects of an oral multivitamin combination with calcium, magnesium, and zinc on psychological well-being in healthy young male volunteers: a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2000; 150:220-225

19. Benton D. Micro-nutrient supplementation and the intelligence of children. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2001;125:297-309

20. Arnold LE. Treatment alternatives for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). J Arm Disord 1999;3:30-48

21. Phiel CJ, Klein PS. Molecular targets of lithium action. Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 2001;41:789-813

22. Pryor WA. Vitamin E and heart disease: basic science to clinical intervention trials. Free Radic Biol Med 2000;28:141-164

The post Do Vitamins or Minerals (Apart From Lithium) Have Mood-Stabilizing Effects appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

You’d think so.

In modern psychiatry, niacin and schizophrenia are both terms that have been closeted away out of sight. And patients, tranquilized into submission or Prozac-ed into La-La Land, are often idly at home or wandering the streets, where either way it is highly doubtful that they will get much in the way of a daily vitamin intake. Those in institutions fare little better nutritionally. For everyone “knows” that vitamins do not cure “real” diseases.

But Dr Hoffer dissents. For half a century Dr Hoffer has dissented. His central point has been this: Illness, including mental illness, is not caused by drug deficiency. But much illness, especially mental illness, may be seen to be caused by a vitamin deficiency. This makes sense, and has stood up to clinical trial again and again. If you do not believe this, Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia will provide you with the references to prove it. And remember that it was Dr. Hoffer who started off those clinical studies in the first place. In 1952.

I personally should have first became aware of a food-brain connection during those all-night, cookie-fired mah-jongg marathons I all-too-regularly indulged in while attending Australian National University. Though arguably somewhat less than psychotic, my mind was nevertheless pretty whacked out on sugar, junk food and adrenalin by 3 am. My mood was destroyed; my mind agitated; unable to sleep, sit still, or smile. Of course, I never entertained even the thought of a nutrition connection. For we’ve all been carefully taught that drugs cure illness, not diet.

And certainly not vitamin supplements!

But the truth will out eventually. Three years later, I first saw niacin work on somebody else. He was a bona-fide, properly-diagnosed, utterly-incurable, State-hospitalized schizophrenic patient. I did not see niacin work in the hospital, of course; the only vitamins given there are what you can filter out of your Jell-O and your Tang. No, the patient was a fellow whose parents were desperate enough try anything, even nutrition. Perhaps this was because their son was so unmanageably violent that he was kicked out of the asylum and sent to live with them. On a good day, his Mom and Dad somehow got him to take 3,000 milligrams of niacin and 10,000 mg of vitamin C. Formally a hyperactive insomniac, he responded by sleeping for 18 hours the first night and becoming surprisingly normal within days. I’d seen him before, and I saw him after. I’d talked to his parents during the whole process. It was an astounding improvement.

Sometime afterward, I tried niacin to see if it would help my own touch of sleeplessness. I found it worked nicely, and it only took a little to do so, perhaps 100 milligrams at most. Any more and I would experience a warm “flush.” But then I found that when I ate junk food or sugar in quantity, I could hold 500 mg or more without flushing a bit. And when I took all that niacin, instead of flipping out, I was calm. In Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia , Dr. Hoffer explains why this is so:

1) As a rule, the more ill you are, the more niacin you can hold without flushing. In other words, if you need it, you physiologically soak up a lot of niacin. Where does it all go? Well, a good bit of it goes into making nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD. NAD is just about the most important coenzyme in your body. It is made from niacin, as its name implies.

2) Niacin is also works in your body as an antihistamine. Many persons showing psychotic behavior suffer from cerebral allergies. They need more niacin in order to cope with eating inappropriate foods. They also need to stop eating those inappropriate foods, chief among which are the ones they may crave the most: junk food and sugar.

3) There is a chemical found in quantity in the bodies of schizophrenic persons. It is an indole called adrenochrome. Adrenochrome (which is oxidized adrenalin) has an almost LSD-like effect on the body. That might well explain their behavior. Niacin serves to reduce the body’s production of this toxic material.

That Dr. Hoffer can compress a lifetime of research experience into one readable and surprisingly short book is a tribute to how clearly he teaches both layman and physician the essentials of niacin treatment. I have taught nutritional biochemistry to high school, undergraduate, and chiropractic students. To most, it is not an especially gripping subject. But when even a basic working knowledge of niacin chemistry can profoundly change psychotic patients for the better, it becomes very interesting very quickly.

Dr. Hoffer has treated thousands and thousands of such patients for nearly half a century. At 83, he still is in actively practicing orthomolecular (megavitamin) psychiatry. He has seen medical fads come and go. What he sees now is what he’s always seen: that very sick people get well on vitamin B-3.

Review copyright c 2000 by Andrew Saul, 23 Greenridge Crescent, Hamlin, NY 14464 USA.

Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia: Discovery, Recovery, Controversy
by Abram Hoffer, MD
Quarry Press, Kingston, Ontario Canada (1998) ISBN 1-55082-079-6
Softcover, 150 pages plus bibliography and two appendices.

The post Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia: Discovery, Recovery, Controversy – by Abram Hoffer, MD appeared first on Alternative Complementary Medicine.

She is still very restless, but was more so before the Belladonna. The white of the eye full of red vessels. She seems to have a pain in the nape of the neck.

From the glass in which one tablespoonful was stirred, one teaspoonful is to be taken and stirred in a second glassful of water, and of this from two to four teaspoonfuls (increasing the dose daily by one teaspoonful) are to be taken in the morning.

20th. – Much better; speaks more rationally; works a little; recognises and names me; and wishes to kiss a lady present. She now begins to shew her amorous propensities; is easily put in a passion, and takes things in bad part; sleeps well; weeps very often; becomes angry about a trifle; eats more than usual; when she comes to her senses she likes to play, but only just as a little child would.

Belladonna, a globule of a higher potency: seven tablespoonfuls shaken in two glasses, 6 teaspoonfuls from the second glass early in the morning. [The meaning of these directions, which is not very obvious, seems to be that the globule shall be dissolved in seven tablespoonfuls of water, and of this a tablespoonful is to be stirred in a second tumbler of water, and from this second glass a teaspoonful is to be given for six successive mornings.]

28th. – On the 22nd, 23d, and 24, very much excited day and night; great lasciviousness in her actions and words; she pulls up her clothes and seeks to touch the genitals of others, she readily gets into a rage and beats everyone.

Hyosciamus X’, seven tablespoonfuls, &c., one tablespoonful in one tumblerful of water; in the morning a teaspoonful.

5th October. For five days she would eat nothing; complains of belly-ache; for the last few days less malicious and less lascivious; stools rather loose; itching all over the body, especially on her genitals; sleep, good.

Sacch. Lactis for seven days, in seven tablespoonfuls, &c.

10th. – On the 7th, fit of excessive anger; she sought to strike everyone. The next day, the 8th, attack of fright and fear, almost like the commencement of her illness (fear of an imaginary wolf;) fear lest she should be burnt. Since then she has becomes quiet, and talks rationally and nothing indecent for the last two days.

Sacch. Lactis, &c.

14th. – Quite good and sensible.

18th. – The same, but severe headache; inclination to sleep by day; not so cheerful.

New sulphur (new dynamization of the smallest material portion) one globule on three tumblers; in the morning one teaspoonful.

22nd. – Very well; very little headache.

Sulphur, the next dynamization in two tumblers.

She went on with the sulphur occasionally until November, at which time she was and still remains a healthy, rational, amiable girl.

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Amid the pile of internal reviews and memos, according to the journal, is a document dated November 1988 that reports Prozac (fluoxetine) had caused behavioral problems, including agitation and serious panic attacks, in clinical trials.

The issue of disclosure is a loaded one. The FDA announced in October that antidepressants such as Prozac would now have to carry a “black box” warning that health-care providers should be on the lookout for, among other things, increased agitation, panic attacks, and aggression among users of the drugs.

This latest report also fuels the ongoing debate over which clinical studies should come to the attention of federal regulators and which should never the see the light of day.

“The discovery of research, reportedly ‘missing’ for the past 10 years, that connects Prozac to increased suicidal tendencies and violence is one more tragic example of a greater problem: Unless we mandate that all research be disclosed to the FDA during the drug approval process, regulators have no choice but to make their decisions based on the best-case scenarios that drug companies report to them,” U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), whose office is reviewing the documents, said in a statement. “These decisions affect the health and lives of millions of Americans. If Eli Lilly’s research indicated dangerous side effects of their product and they withheld that information, they knowingly jeopardized the public’s health. Their failure to disclose what they knew may have cost lives.”

Morry Smulevitz, manager of global product communications at Eli Lilly, said he couldn’t comment on the documents because he hasn’t seen them at all.

“Certainly Lilly is obliged to public disclosure of all clinical trial data so health-care providers and patients can make informed treatment decisions,” he said. “Prozac has been prescribed for over 50 million people all over the world. It is one of the most studied drugs in the history of medicine, and its safety and efficacy is well-studied and well-documented and well-established. Beyond that, unfortunately, it’s really difficult without having the ability to review the supposed missing documents that we’re not aware of to know what we’re trying to make comments upon.”

Smulevitz said he had requested the documents from Jeanne Lenzer, a New York-based medical investigative journalist who received them and then sent them on to the BMJ and the FDA. But, he said, the request was not met.

Dr. Richard Kapit, the FDA reviewer who originally approved fluoxetine in 1987, told the BMJ that he had never been given the Lilly data.

“If we have good evidence that we were misled and that data was withheld, then I would change my mind [about the safety of fluoxetine],” he said in a statement. “I do agree now that these stimulatory side effects, especially in regard to suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation, are worse than I thought at the time that I reviewed the drug.”

The documents in question reportedly disappeared during a product liability suit brought in 1994 by families of the victims of Joseph Wesbecker, who, in 1989, killed eight people and wounded another 12 with an AK-47 before turning the gun on himself at his workplace in Louisville, Ky. Wesbecker, who had suffered a long history of depression, had started using fluoxetine just one month before the shootings.

The relatives’ civil suit alleged that the company had known about possible side effects of the drugs, including a tendency towards violence.

The jury ruled 9- 3 in favor of Lilly, but, in a shocking turnaround, the company later admitted it had made a secret deal with the plaintiffs. In 1997, the judge on the case, John Potter, amended the verdict to “dismissed as settled with prejudice,” meaning it could be reopened. Potter was presiding over another case Thursday, and could not be reached for comment on the latest developments.

“It’s been a big puzzle for many years,” Lenzer said. “The documents went missing during a critical period in the [wrongful death] trial.” Lenzer would not reveal who had sent her the documents.

The internal company document that stood out to Lenzer, she said, was one that discussed the finding that 38 percent of people have a stimulation effect, such as panic attacks and agitation, and that 19 percent of those could be attributed to the drug.

According to Lenzer, the document stated “one in five [patients] could be expected to experience this activation. And, later in the document, they talk about how to do damage control, how to get the doctors not to worry about this. Maybe the information actually got out and got buried. It’s like a little flicker of a flame. Obviously they didn’t get this out to a wide circulation. They didn’t get it out to the people who needed to know. They didn’t get it to the FDA safety officer who reviewed it.”

Dr. Peter Breggin, the medical expert in the Wesbecker case, has said the activation effects could be higher than 38 percent.

Lenzer, however, said she is concerned that what she called a pattern of secrecy among drug companies continues.

She referred to the Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS), the results of which appeared in the Aug. 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association . Although the findings were hailed as a victory for antidepressants, Lenzer stated in a September letter to the BMJ that the research had a flawed methodology and failed to report certain negative results.

“This is still going on. It’s not just 16 years ago. It’s going on today, right now,” she said.

An FDA spokeswoman said the agency had no comment at this point.

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on antidepressant use in children.

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