[Info] Natural Cure for Depression, Bipolar, ADHD, Schizophrenia

[RobinN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X9cg4454mYA#!

TRANSCRIPT: http://encognitive.com/node/1112
This alternative therapy employs vitamins, minerals, and amino acids to create optimum nutritional content for the body, as well as the right environment and equilibrium. Like most alternative medicine techniques, orthomolecular medicine targets a wide range of conditions. [depression, bipolar, adhd, schizophrenia, add, addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction...]

Orthomolecular medicine was developed by Linus Pauling, Ph.D., winner of two Nobel prizes, in 1968. It is designed to enable individuals to reach the apex of health and the peak of their performance by utilizing only naturally occurring substances (e.g. vitamins, minerals, enzymes, trace elements, co-enzymes). The proper balance of these substances in the body is the key to reaching physical, mental, and emotional health and stability. Orthomolecular medicine can be used therapeutically to treat diseases such as cancer and AIDS, or preventatively to impede the progress of degenerative disease and aging. When all is said and done, however, the main objective of orthomolecular medicine is to help the patient reach an optimal level of health; his or her self-esteem will probably improve in the process.

Although orthomolecular medicine did not fully develop into a therapy until the late 1960's when Pauling coined the term "orthomolecular," the premise behind this practice originated in the 1920's, when vitamins and minerals were first used to treat illnesses unrelated to nutrient deficiency. It was discovered that vitamin A could prevent childhood deaths from infectious illness, and that heart arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) could be stopped by dosages of magnesium. Hard scientific evidence supporting nutritional therapy did not emerge, however, until the 1950's, when Abram Hoffer, M.D., and Humphrey Osmond, M.D., began treating schizophrenics with high doses of vitamin B3 (niacin). As a consequence of their studies, it was revealed that niacin, in combination with other medical treatments, could double the number of recoveries in a one-year period.

Eventually, it was determined that malnutrition and consumption of refined, empty-calorie foods such as white bread and pastries and overconsumption of sugar could yield disease and psychiatric disorders. It became apparent that a person's diet was an overwhelmingly integral part of his or her health and well-being. Further studies showed that decreased intake of dietary fiber, bran, minerals, and complex carbohydrates was prevalent in patients with certain forms of mental illness, accompanied by a loss of vitamins and an increase in dietary fat.

Biochemical individual is a main principle of orthomolecular medicine. This principle was elucidated by Roger J. Williams, Ph.D. This principle is quite simple: every living organism is unique! Furthermore, each individual requires different relative amounts of nutrients for his or her satisfaction and optimal level of health. The government sets a minimum recommended daily allowance (RDA) which is supposed to be adequate for all individuals. However, many may need to exceed the RDA as well as the recommended 2,000 calorie diet in order to prevent severe deficiency disease. Thus, RDA values are not perfect guidelines for everyone. Several studies have proven the existence of biochemical individuality. For example, studies of guinea pigs showed a twentyfold variation in their requirement for vitamin C. A study conducted with human subjects revealed that children have varying needs for vitamin B6.

http://www.orthomolecularvitamincentre.com/
http://www.encognitive.com
http://www.youtube.com/EncognitiveVids

 

[epileric]

Eventually, it was determined that malnutrition and consumption of refined, empty-calorie foods such as white bread and pastries and overconsumption of sugar could yield disease and psychiatric disorders. It became apparent that a person's diet was an overwhelmingly integral part of his or her health and well-being. Further studies showed that decreased intake of dietary fiber, bran, minerals, and complex carbohydrates was prevalent in patients with certain forms of mental illness, accompanied by a loss of vitamins and an increase in dietary fat.

Actually, it was determined that there is no malnutrition in North America as we've discussed before. (post #21) http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f22/all-disease-health-begins-gut-16007/index2.html#post167547 and the whole connection of diet to mental illness & diet are tenuous at best except among those considered quacks by the medical community.

Also, despite the claims in your links there have been no studies to prove human needs for such large doses of supplements & many studies to prove otherwise. Even one link that said "research" showed absolutely no research, just anecdote.

How do scientists become cranks and doctors quacks?
As a physician and scientists who’s dedicated his life to the application of science to the development of better medical treatments, I’ve often wondered how formerly admired scientists and physicians fall into pseudoscience or even generate into out-and-out cranks. Examples are numerous and depressing to contemplate. For example, there’s Linus Pauling, a highly respected chemist and Nobel Laureate, who in his later years became convinced that high dose vitamin C could cure cancer. Indeed, Pauling’s belief that high dose vitamin C could cure the common cold and cancer fueled the development of a whole new form of quackery known as “orthomolecular medicine,” whose entire philosophy seems to be based on the concept that if some vitamins are good more must be better. In essence, “orthomolecular medicine” is a parody of nutritional science; indeed, its advocates take credit for how some strains of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) so frequently advocate the ingestion of huge amounts of dietary “supplements.” I could even go farther and say that orthomolecular medicine is clearly a major part of the “intellectual” (and I do use that term loosely) underpinning of the various biomedical treatments for autism that Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue advcoate.

There are other examples as well, all just as depressing to contemplate. For example, consider Peter Duesberg, a brilliant virologist who in the 1980s was widely believed to be on track for a Nobel Prize; that is, until he became fixated on the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS. True, lately he’s been trying to resurrect his scientific reputation with his interesting and possibly even promising chromosomal aneuploidy hypothesis of cancer, but, alas, true to form he’s been doing it by acting like a crank. Specifically, he sees his hypothesis as The One True Cause of Cancer and disparages conventional thinking as having been so very, very wrong all these years (with his being, of course, so very, very brilliant that he saw what no one else could see). Then there are people like Dr. Lorraine Day, who was a respected academic orthopedic surgeon in the 1980s. In the late 1980s, she started to flirt with AIDS pseudoscience through a scare campaign about catching AIDS from aerosolized blood. Of course, given the mystery and fear over HIV in the early years of the epidemic, such a fear, although overblown, was not so far out of the mainstream as to be worthy of the appellation crank. However, after being diagnosed with breast cancer, unfortunately Dr. Day rapidly degenerated into a purveyor of rank pseudoscience, as well as a New World Order conspiracy theorist, religious loon, and Holocaust denier. And let’s not forget Mark Geier, who, although not a distinguished scientist, did, before his conversion to antivaccinationism, apparently do a real fellowship at the NIH and appeared to be on track to a respectable, maybe even impressive, career as an academic physician. Now he’s doing “research” in his basement, injecting autistic children with a powerful anti-sex hormone drug and abusing epidemiology. There are innumerable other examples.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/how-do-scientists-become-cranks-and-doctors-quacks/

Also, large amounts of certain supplements have been shown to be harmful http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f22/orthomolecular-15489/

 

[epileric]

Orthomolecular medicine can be used therapeutically to treat diseases such as cancer and AIDS, or preventatively to impede the progress of degenerative disease and aging. When all is said and done, however, the main objective of orthomolecular medicine is to help the patient reach an optimal level of health; his or her self-esteem will probably improve in the process.

Several studies have proven the existence of biochemical individuality. For example, studies of guinea pigs showed a twentyfold variation in their requirement for vitamin C.

Use in AIDS

Several articles in the alternative-medicine literature have suggested that orthomolecular-related dietary supplementation might be helpful for patients with HIV/AIDS.[97][98] However, high-dose vitamin C treatments have been studied clinically to treat AIDS patients without any positive result.[99] An analysis of fifteen clinical trials of micronutrient therapies by the Cochrane Collaboration in 2005 found no evidence that such approaches either reduce symptoms or mortality in HIV-infected adults who are not malnourished, but found evidence, in one hospital, that giving vitamin A to infants with HIV may be beneficial.[100] Vitamin A deficiency is found in children with HIV infection who may or may not have symptoms of AIDS. Vitamin A supplementation reduces morbidity and mortality in AIDS symptomatic children, but has no effect on asymptomatic children. It does not prevent HIV infection, cannot treat the chronic HIV infection, and will not cure AIDS.[101][102]

Example: vitamin E

Orthomolecular proponents claim that even large doses of vitamin E pose no risk to health and are useful for the treatment and prevention of a broad list of conditions, including heart and circulatory diseases, diabetes and nephritis.[85] Initial hopes for the usefulness of vitamin E in orthomolecular medicine were based on epidemiological studies suggesting that people who consumed more vitamin E had lower risks of chronic disease, such as coronary heart disease.[86] These observational studies could not distinguish between whether the higher levels of vitamin E improved health themselves, or whether confounding variables (such as other dietary factors or exercise) were responsible.[87][88] To distinguish between these possibilities, a number of randomized controlled trials were performed and meta-analysis of these controlled clinical trials have not shown any clear benefit from any form of vitamin E supplementation for preventing chronic disease.[89][90][91][92] Further clinical studies show no benefit of vitamin E supplements for cardiovascular disease.[93] The current position of the National Institutes of Health is that there is no convincing evidence that vitamin E supplements can prevent or treat any disease.[94]

Beyond the lack of apparent benefit, a series of three meta-analyses reported that vitamin E supplementation is associated with an increased risk of death; one of the meta-analyses performed by the Cochrane Collaboration also found significantly increased mortality for the antioxidant vitamins A and beta-carotene.[16] [95][96]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomolecular_medicine#Scope

Also, treatments for Depression, Bipolar, ADHD and Schizophrenia have nothing to do with treatments for epilepsy