Psychosis Cured with Vitamin Therapy

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Psychosis Cured with Vitamin Therapy: Nutrition Protocols and Case

Histories of Dr. A. Hoffer

 

Megavitamin Therapy for Psychosis

by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.P.S. (Can.)

 

Schizophrenia remains one of the most serious chronic diseases,

attacking 1 to 2% of the population. Forty years ago patients

suffering from schizophrenia occupied half of all the mental hospital

beds and one-quarter of all hospital beds. Today, most of the mental

hospitals have shut down but they have not disappeared. By refusing to

accept patients, and by discharging them before they are ready for

independent living, they converted the community into the new mental

hospitals. About half of the homeless people on our streets are

schizophrenics, many of whom have been treated in mental hospitals or

psychiatric wards, placed on tranquilizers, and then discharged to

fend for themselves.

 

The main difference is that formerly they were treated in inadequate

hospitals, which provided shelter, food, nursing care and some medical

care. Patients were protected from society and society was protected

from the more violent aggressive psychotic patients. These patients

had little personal freedom. Today, the modern mental hospital, which

is the streets with their rundown hotels, nursing homes, foster homes

and so on, provides tranquilizers for some, pays no attention to food,

provides little shelter and provides no protection for patients and

for society. But they do have much more freedom to be sick, to roam,

to refuse medication, to prey upon others, to be preyed upon by others.

 

The end results are the same. Patients do not recover. The recovery

rate today is certainly under 15% which is one-third of the recovery

rate achieved in 1850 in England and in the USA in the Dorothea Lynde

Dix hospital in the eastern part of the country. In my opinion, the

street schizophrenics today are no better off than they were in 1950.

They suffered tremendously then from psychiatric ignorance from this

socially rejected disease, and they suffer today from psychiatric

refusal to examine a much better treatment called orthomolecular therapy.

 

Modern drugs, primarily tranquilizers, are very helpful in

ameliorating the symptoms of the disease, but by themselves they can

not and do not lead to recovery. Psychiatric chemotherapy is

equivalent to chemotherapy practiced by oncologists for most forms of

cancer, they do little good and cause a lot of harm. Psychiatric

chemotherapy leaves the unfortunate patients with a dismal choice: (1)

to remain naturally psychotic without the benefit of these drugs in

reducing suffering or, (2) suffering the iatrogenic organic disease,

the tranquilizer psychosis.

 

Tranquilizers, no matter how helpful, create a major dilemma for

patients and their psychiatrists. Given to patients, they help reduce

the frequency and intensity of the symptoms, but given to normal

people they make them sick. Under the communist regime in Russia,

dissidents were locked up in mental hospitals and given tranquilizers.

They were using their peculiar definition of mental illness, i.e. a

person who disagreed with the system. These people were made psychotic

by the tranquilizers. When patients are given the same drugs they

begin to get better, their symptoms are alleviated to some degree,

they are more comfortable and their families being to feel hopeful

again that they will recover. But as they become better or more

normal, they begin to respond to these drugs as if they were normal,

i.e. they become sick.

 

The tranquilizer psychosis created by these drugs includes psychiatric

and physical symptoms. The psychiatric symptoms are apathy,

disinterest, poor concentration and memory problems so they can not

study and learn, personality deterioration, and inability to function

without supervision. On the physical side they develop tardive

dyskinesia, other types of neurological conditions, impotence,

obesity, and skin problems. Patients are no more fond of these latter

symptoms than they are of their natural schizophrenia, and many prefer

to be psychotic rather than suffer the ravages of this iatrogenic disease.

Orthomolecular therapy provides patients with a third choice, to

become normal and stay well.

 

The importance of clinical diagnosis

Early during my career as Director of Psychiatric Research I became

aware of the need to diagnose schizophrenia accurately and reasonably

quickly. Our research psychologists had spent at least $50,000 (in

1955 pre inflation dollars) and after examining the psychological and

clinical literature had concluded that there was no accurate test for

this disease. They also concluded that this was due to the fact that

psychiatrists would not agree on a definition and stick to it. The

clinical expression of the disease was so variable that it was

extremely difficult to sort it out from other conditions. This has

been true of medicine in general. The great disease, syphilis, had a

similar wide spread set of symptoms and signs and until the

serological tests were developed there was the same degree of

uncertainty. The situation has not changed over the past forty years.

We still do not have any good generally used tests. The MMPI, in my

opinion, is clinically of little value for the clinical psychiatrist

even though it is used widely by psychologists. And the criteria laid

down in the American Psychiatric Diagnostic Manuals seem to be ignored.

 

I had decided to use the criteria, described so eloquently, by John

Conolly, the superintendent of a mental hospital in England. He wrote

the book Indications of Insanity. His definition was clear and elegant

and is the best working definition of this condition. It was, he

wrote, a disease of perception combined with an inability to tell

whether these perceptual changes were real or not. I have used this

definition since and I have found it most valuable. But unfortunately

American psychiatry did not know about this definition and was raised

on the definition described by E. Bleuler. Dr Bleuler's definition

depended upon the presence or absence of thought disorder with very

little emphasis given to perceptual changes. This still remains a

basis for diagnosing except that a whole host of other factors have

become operative, probably because it is so difficult to define

accurately when thought disorder is present.

 

I also became aware many years ago that the diagnosis, like changes in

clothing fashions, changed with the prevailing attitude toward this

condition. Thus, in the early 1950's psychiatrists under the sway of

psychoanalysis would not diagnose it unless there was evidence of

latent homosexuality. I remember that at one clinical conference the

psychiatrist presenting the case had diagnosed the patient

schizophrenic and then added that he was homosexual. During the

discussion I asked him whether in fact his patient had ever actually

been homosexual. He replied that he had not, but he added he must be a

latent homosexual since Freud had declared that this was the basis for

paranoid schizophrenia.

 

When we were conducting the double blind experiments to test vitamin

B-3 for treating schizophrenics I discovered that for a while we were

no longer admitting any schizophrenic patients to the Munro Wing, the

psychiatric ward of the General Hospital in Regina, Saskatchewan.

However as the study ran for several years this dearth of patients

that I could enter into the study was replaced by a shower of

patients. I soon realized that there was enough resistance among the

clinical staff to allowing their patients to be included in the study

that they initially preferred to diagnose them depression or anxiety

or psychopathy . But since these patients did not recover and relapsed

after discharge, on readmission they were forced to make the correct

diagnosis.

 

Another factor was the knowledge that schizophrenics did not respond

to psychotherapy. Knowing this, psychiatrists, if they wanted to give

psychotherapy and believed it had a chance would not diagnose their

patients. I recall one patient, whom I interviewed after the resident

had been treating her with psychotherapy for several months. As I was

talking to her she kept on looking over my shoulder into the corner of

the room at the ceiling. I asked her what was she looking at. She

replied that her sister, who lived in Edmonton, was in the corner of

the room at the ceiling level and she was looking at her. A few days

after I informed the resident that she was hallucinating he changed

the diagnosis and sent her to the closest mental hospital. Today

psychiatrists know that psychotherapy alone is of little value. But

they also know that drugs, although very helpful, do not really make

schizophrenic patients normal. If, therefore, they have a patient that

they really want to treat they will diagnose them as bipolar

(manic-depressive), or depressed which most of them are, and can then

use lithium or anti depressants. If they don't want to treat them, if

they are especially difficult, or troublesome, or have a dislikable

personality they will diagnose them as personality disorders. In any

event the result is that patients who are schizophrenic, and who would

respond to some treatment are ignored and banished to the modern

mental hospital of our large cities, the city streets.

 

This case represents one such case.

 

Elizabeth came to see me December 18, 1995. Her family practitioner

wrote in his letter referring her to me " She is a 28 year old with a

long history of psychiatric illness with varied diagnosis including

anorexia nervosa, borderline personality disorder, multiple

personality disorder and these associated with suicide attempts and

multiple hospitalizations " . She had also been diagnosed depression.

 

About mid 1992 she began to suffer severe headaches, about two to

three times per month, unrelated to her periods, often preceded by

nausea and vomiting. She was given the usual variety of headache

medication without any response, including fiorinal, demerol, gravol,

tylenol, Imitrex by injection. Her general practitioner had reported

to the neurologist that she was working as a nurse's aid, was a good

worker, and hated missing work.

Early in 1993 a consultant reported that she had had an eating

disorder which was not responding to treatment. For over three weeks

she had fasted and had not drunk any fluids. She felt faint, had

palpitations and was very tired. She had been a member of an Eating

Disorder support group. When she was sixteen she would starve herself

for up to 6 weeks. When she gained some weight she would resume her

fasting. She had also used laxatives. Later she began to use

medication such as ionamine to control her appetite. She would binge

and vomit 3-4 times per week. Sometimes two times each day. She had

been a very good student making A's and B's, a good athlete, was happy

with school and with her family. There was no improvement in the hospital.

 

She was admitted again. In the meantime she had spent four months at a

private facility for anorexics. She was committed with severe

depression, auditory hallucinations and suicidal ideation. This

admission she admitted she had been a victim of child sexual abuse, by

her step father. She continued to hear voices but the psychiatrist in

charge interpreted these as a projection of her own thoughts. He began

to indulge in psychoanalytic speculations about the causes of her

voices which he denied were hallucinations. For the first time the

term personality disorder began to appear in her record. This is in

striking contrast with the opinion of her general practitioner who had

seen her as basically a normal, achieving person. She was diagnosed

depression and placed on anti depressants.

 

April 7 to 20, 1995, she was assessed by psychologists, She reported

hearing derogatory voices inside her head which had become louder in

the past few years. She also heard voices from outside calling her and

saw faces in several different places e.g. in flowers, in food and in

a window. She reported she had been in four motor vehicle accidents

from December to January 1994 due to blackouts when driving. It was

suggested that she suffered from dissociative reactions but no

diagnosis was made.

 

During my first interview, she complained she had been depressed and

agitated for four years. She was less depressed while on Prozac but

was still having problems with her eating disorder. A mental state

examination revealed a large variety of perceptual symptoms including

hearing voices, seeing visions. There were voices of several men.

There was also a change in taste perception. She could not tell the

difference from the hallucinations and real phenomena. She was also

very paranoid and suspicious of her family and friends. I disregarded

all the previous diagnoses which totally ignored her main symptoms and

diagnosed her schizophrenia. The mean score for schizophrenia is

around 65. Few patients with other diagnoses score over 30 and all

normal people score less than 20. On the HOD test she scored extremely

high, as follows Total 152, Perceptual 36, paranoid 9, depression 16

and short form 14. The odds she was schizophrenic were over 90%. I

started her on niacin 500 mg tid, ascorbic acid 1 G tid, pyridoxine

250 mg od and zinc citrate 50 mg od. Orthomolecular therapy includes

the combined use of diet, nutrients in optimum amounts and drugs as

needed.

 

Three months later she was free of voices. A month later I heard from

the referring physician to express his pleasure at seeing how well she

now was. He added " She is almost unrecognizably improved " . June 11,

1996 she and I estimated she was 80% better. She stated that she felt

normal for the first time in five years. In July she continued her

improvement. She had visited her mother with her three children and

had enjoyed the visit. When she had been depressed and paranoid her

psychiatrist had stated that she had a poor relationship with her

parents. This was apparently not the case. Her HOD scores were now

normal. She was still on niacin 4.5 G od, Prozac 20 mg od and the rest

of the vitamin regimen.

 

From the time I had first seen her there was one more visit to the

Emergency Department of the Hospital. In 1992 she was seen in the

Emergency 6 times. In 1993 she was seen 12 times with one after an

overdose of drugs. In 1994 she was seen 16 times after 9 overdose

attempts and spent 95 days in hospital. In 1995 she was seen 16 times

with 2 overdoses. (Fifty visits to Emergency Services over a four year

period with 12 suicide attempts and a total of 101 days admitted to

hospital.) She started orthomolecular treatment on December 18, 1995.

So far (November 1, 1996) she has been seen once in the emergency

services.

 

Conclusion

Assuming that each day in hospital costs $1000 and that each visit to

the Emergency cost $100, the total cost of hospital care, not counting

payment to physicians for services rendered, was $106,000, over a four

year period. After these numerous admissions to hospital, after

extensive treatment, she had not shown any improvement. But after she

was properly diagnosed which led to the correct orthomolecular

treatment, she was almost normal in a few months. From a person

declared inadequate (personality disorder), who had suffered severe

depression and migraine headaches she became the normal person she had

been before she became ill, free of Migraine, free of depression. She

is once more able to look after her children. She will probably remain

well as long as she remains on the regimen.

 

Scientifically, when a phenomenon (this patient's history of illness

and repeated admissions) suddenly changes direction after a new

variable has been added, one must assume that the change in direction

arose from the application of the new variable. Consider the course of

her illness as an object moving in a straight line. Several pressures

are applied but the object remains on course. However when the course

is abruptly altered after the application of a new force then one can

conclude there has been a true effect of the new force on the course

of the illness i.e. that orthomolecular treatment caused her marked

improvement.

 

Literature Cited

Conolly, J. An Inquiry Concerning the Indications of Insanity (1830),

Dawsons of Pall Mall, London, 1964

 

Hoffer A, Kelm H & Osmond H: The Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test. RE

Krieger Pub Co. Huntington, New York, 1975.

 

Hoffer A: Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians. Keats Pub., New

Canaan, CT, 1989.

 

Hoffer A & Osmond H: How To Live With Schizophrenia. University Books,

New York, NY, 1966. Also published by Johnson, London, 1966. Written

by Fannie Kahan. New and Revised Ed. Citadel Press, New York, NY, 1992.

 

Hoffer A: Chronic schizophrenic patients treated ten years or more. J.

Orthomolecular Medicine, 9:7-37,1994.

 

Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test (HOD) for Orthomolecular Therapy

This is a simple test we developed for assisting in the diagnosis of

the schizophrenias. It is based upon the perceptual theory of

schizophrenia. It consists of 145 cards, each containing a question,

to which the patient replies by placing the cards in a true of false

category. The true questions are scored. Schizophrenics score high,

usually over 50, while all other persons tested score low, usually

under 30. The magnitude of the score indicates the probability one has

schizophrenia. This test has been found to be very useful in rapidly

reaching a diagnosis and in accelerating the proper treatment. It is

also available for computer scoring and analysis.

 

Hoffer A, Kelm H & Osmond H: The Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test. RE

Krieger Pub. Co., Huntington, NY, 1975.

 

The HOD Test Kit is available (in English only) from Behavior Science

Press, Institute For Social and Educational Research, 3710 Resource

Drive, Tuscaloosa AL 35401-7059, USA.

 

A Chronic Schizophrenic Woman Comes Back to Life

Chronic patients respond more slowly to treatment. It may take up to

ten years before the maximum benefit is seen. Following a recent

survey of a small sample from about 500 chronic patients under my

care, I concluded that the major recovery occurred about 5 to 7 years

after treatment was initiated (Hoffer,1994) If, therefore, treatment

is discontinued too soon the optimum therapeutic effect will not be

seen. One of my complaints about psychiatric hospitals is that, on the

rare occasion when my patients are admitted, they promptly stop my

whole program, place them on other medication, take away their

vitamins and when they are discharged and return to me, I have to

start them all over again. A few determined patients have had their

families smuggle the vitamins to them and a few patients have

surreptitiously taken them on their own. One of the patients hid them

in his boots so that he could take them when alone. This interrupts

the treatment of these patients and retards their recovery. This case

history, anecdote, illustrates the slow pace of recovery and the happy

final outcome.

 

Lena came to see me in October 1988 with her father. When they walked

into my office my first impression was that she was either severely

retarded or a chronic deteriorated schizophrenic. I obtained the first

history from her father, as she was not able to tell me anything. She

sat looking to one side the whole time. Her father complained that she

suffered unusual blotchy skin, and her hands became very sweaty when

she became excited. Her parents were surprised when in grade 6 they

were told that she was not able to learn. From then on she went to

special classes. About one month before she came to see me she had

fallen asleep in her chair and had spent the night there. Her parents

awakened her. She accused them of trying to drown her and ran away.

The police picked her up, called her parents and she went home with

them. The mental state examination revealed only that she was paranoid

believing people were saying nasty things about her. I concluded that

she was an adult learning-disordered person which had been present

from childhood.

 

I started her on niacinamide 1 gram after each meal, the same amount

of vitamin C, pyridoxine 250 mg each day and zinc gluconate 50 mg each

day. Six months later her skin was normal, she was less depressed, had

more confidence in herself and found it easier to communicate. She was

no longer paranoid. But during July 1988 she had to be admitted to

hospital. This time she complained about hearing the voices of her

father or mother when they were not present. I rediagnosed her chronic

schizophrenic.

She was started on small doses of thioridazine and in a few days

discharged. She was admitted again in March 1990 after her mother had

advised her to stop the tranquilizer. She was admitted for the last

time March 1990 for 7 days. She was discharged on the same vitamin

program with thioridazine 300 mg daily, This is the average dose for

this tranquilizer. She no longer heard the voices of her parents. By

the end of 1990 I was able to reduce the drug to 100 mg daily. By the

end of 1991 she was getting along well and working part time. She had

been free of the voices. April 1992 the drug was decreased to 75 mg.

She was cheerful, on the same job, getting along well with her fellow

workers.

 

January 1993 she was on 25 mg of the drug plus the same vitamins. She

was less sleepy, cheerful and much more communicative. I kept on

reducing the drug but in the end of 1994 had to increase it back to 50

mg. Early in 1996 the drug was down to 25 mg. She came to see me July

1996 very excited. She was free of all symptoms. She brought along her

math test results and had made 100 percent. She proudly showed me the

certificate she had received for her scholastic performance. She was a

better reader than the other patients in her class and was not afraid

to read in front on them. She told me that she was very happy because

for the first time in many years her parents who had not been getting

along had reconciled and they were enjoying each other's company again.

 

The woman I had seen 8 years earlier no longer existed. She had been

transformed from a sick looking woman who had the appearance of a

retarded person as used to be portrayed in old text books of

psychiatry to a young woman who dressed well, and spoke freely to me.

When I first saw her, and for several years, she would always talk in

response to my questions but would look off to the side. She enjoyed

coming to the office, and especially enjoyed saying hello to my

secretary and getting a hug from her. I wrote to the referring

physician " It is always a delight to see how much improvement Lena is

showing as I continue to see her. Today she was feeling really good,

was very cheerful and she was especially delighted because her

parents, who apparently had not been talking to each other for years

are getting along very much better. I think she is doing great. "

 

My criteria for recovery are very simple (1) There must be no symptoms

and signs, (2) The patient must be getting on well with family (3) The

patient must be getting on well with community and (4) The patient

must be employed i.e. paying income tax. Lena has achieved all four

but does not earn enough to pay tax. She has been sick so long that

the handicap of those lost years has not yet been resolved. But she is

learning more skills in a fine program designed to rehabilitate

patients. Without the vitamins she would have remained the same dowdy,

retarded appearing women with no hope of ever getting any better.

 

Lena is one out of several thousand I have seen. Why are chronic

patients elsewhere denied the opportunity to get well?

 

One of the advantages of the orthomolecular regimen is that patients

are more compliant since they do not suffer major side effects and

when they have to take drugs the dose is so small that for this reason

side effects are minimized or avoided.

 

Side effects may have been a main factor in Manley Eng's criminal

career and will force him to remain in prison for 11 years. Mr. Eng

was found guilty of arson and was found to be schizophrenic. He

refused to take medication because it left him feeling lethargic and

stupefied, (Wested, 1996.) I have seen numerous patients who could not

remain on the medication because of severe side effects.

 

This anecdote illustrates the following points

1) Chronic patients must be treated patiently and continuously with

adequate support.

2) A combination of medication and nutrient therapy combines the

advantages of the rapid effect of the drugs and the slow curative

effect of the nutrients. This permits a gradual reduction of

medication until the dose is so low the drug no longer creates its own

psychosis - the tranquilizer psychosis.

3) Schizophrenia in children may take the form of a learning disorder

so that normally intelligent persons appear to be retarded. Lifting

the psychosis by means of orthomolecular therapy will remove the

apparent learning difficulty.

 

Literature Cited

Hoffer A: Chronic schizophrenic patients treated ten years or more. J.

Orthomolecular Medicine, 9:7-37, 1994.

 

Wested, K. " Unrepentant arsonist gets stiffer sentence. " Times

Colonist, Victoria June 25, 1996.

 

Twenty Years On Orthomolecular Therapy

November 11, 1996

On December 8, 1976 Mr. CR, age 25, arrived in my office. He

complained that he was much better than he had been but that there

were days when he was nervous and depressed. Six years earlier he had

become very depressed. He was treated with electroconvulsive therapy

receiving about 11 treatments. His memory had been bad before the

treatment and was worse afterwards so that he could not remember what

he had been like. But most of his depression had been lifted. He

married a few years later. His wife told me that his episodes of

depression had been getting worse. During these he would become quiet,

and obsessive. He was still taking Haldol regularly. He added that he

had, in the past, believed people were staring at him, had suffered

visual hallucinations and had heard voices but had not experienced

these perceptual changes after his treatment. He had been started on

large doses of the B vitamins, with zinc gluconate and brewers yeast.

I added niacin 500 mg three times each day after meals and advised him

to remain on his Haldol 2 mg daily. One month later he was normal.

 

April of 1977 he had suffered an infected finger requiring 7 days in

hospital and two operations. He had also broken a bone in his heal. He

had not been taking his Haldol and he began to hear himself think.

(This is a classic schizophrenic symptom). One month later, back on

Haldol 2 mg, he was well. By the end of the year the Haldol was

decreased to 1 mg daily. In March 1978 I increased his niacin to 1000

mg three times daily. July he was normal but still needed tiny amounts

of Haldol. I increased his niacin to 1500 mg three times daily. By

February 1983 he was normal and no longer needed any medication. In

January 1983 he became depressed again and had to resume his Haldol

which he maintained for a couple of years. I also added 25 mg of

amitrytiline and 2 mg of perphenazine to his program. May 1989 he was

normal. He was a very busy contractor building houses and had moved to

an acreage. October 1960 he came to see me. He was worried that he was

not facing stress adequately. But he had observed that whenever he ate

sugar he became worse. He still needed to take small amounts of the

combination of the anti depressant and the tranquilizer. He was

normal, very busy as a contractor and looking after his family and his

aged parents. He had built a house for them on his property so that he

and his wife could look after them properly. He meets my criteria for

recovery in spite of the fact that now and then he needs some help

with medication. In this he does not differ from patients with other

chronic diseases. Patients on megavitamin therapy usually require much

lower doses of tranquilizers and thus can avoid most of the side

effects associated with the usual dosages that are in use today.

 

Had he not been placed on vitamins by the first psychiatrist who

treated him and which I continued and modified there is little doubt

he would be receiving welfare, on a variety of major drugs and not a

major contributor to Canadian and BC government coffers. A small

investment in vitamins converted him from a chronic schizophrenic

consumer of everything to a major contributor to society.

 

Patients Not Schizophrenic Also Respond to Orthomolecular Therapy

Orthomolecular Medicine is not limited to the treatment of

schizophrenia. Schizophrenia was the first disease that was treated,

beginning with our six double blind controlled experiments that we

started in Saskatchewan in 1951. But this treatment has expanded into

the rest of psychiatry and medicine. I will demonstrate this by

describing the last four patients I saw last week after the coffee

break, none of them were schizophrenic, all of them recovered within

four months of starting this treatment.

 

Lorraine, born in 1961, suffered from restless leg syndrome present

for two years. Neurological examination showed no reason for this. She

suffered from weak legs, unsteadiness and if she walked a lot extreme

fatigue. Mainly she suffered from an uncontrolled urge to move her

legs when awake. This made it very difficult for her to fall asleep

and she suffered from sleep deprivation. She was given several

diagnoses including chronic fatigue syndrome. On her own she began to

take small amounts of a few vitamins and believed this had been

helpful. I advised her to take niacinamide 500 mg after meals, vitamin

C 1000 mg after meals, folic acid 15 mg daily, vitamin B-12 l mg

sublingually daily, lysine 1000 mg after each meal, vitamin E 400 iu

daily and zinc citrate 50 mg daily. November 18, 1996 she was normal.

An anti depressant, Paxil, she had been taking two years had not

helped and she had to discontinue it because of side effects.

 

Lee, born in 1963, was very anxious and tense. For years he had

controlled this by using alcohol. He would binge every three to four

months for one day. He suffered blackouts and often committed

irrational acts that he did not remember later. I started him in

niacin 500 mg after each, meal twice as much ascorbic acid and folic

acid 5 mg twice each day. I have been using niacin for alcoholics for

the past 30 years. This treatment was first widely publicized by my

good and close friend Bill W. Co founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He

circulated a treatise called The Vitamin B-3 Therapy to physician

members of AA. I had advised Bill to take niacin 3 grams daily to

control his severe tension, fatigue and insomnia. Within two weeks he

was well. When I saw Lee for the second time in mid November he was

almost normal and no longer needed to be seen.

 

Frank, born in 1962, had three complaints when he saw me September 30,

1996. He was very anxious and fearful, was unable to stick to any

particular line of activity and could not cope with stress. During his

teens he had experimented with LSD, with pot, mushrooms, cocaine and

alcohol. At age 17 he began to consult various therapists and take

many self help courses, spending about $30,000. I found that

depression and anxiety were the main features. I started him on niacin

500 mg after each meal, on twice as much ascorbic acid, and on folic

acid 5 mg once daily. By mid November he was nearly well. He was able

to concentrate better, was better focussed, his mind was clearer and

his mood was better and level. I then doubled his niacin amd folic

acid for maintenance. He no longer needed to be seen.

 

Marion, age 32, consulted me October 2 because she suffered from

chronic fatigue and was unable to cope with recurrent infections. She

had been diagnosed bipolar psychosis (manic depressive) and had been

on and off lithium for 13 years. When on lithium her mood cycled very

rapidly. In mid July she was diagnosed depression and started on an

antidepressant which was very helpful. But when I saw her she told me

about the voices she had heard in the past, about her paranoia, poor

memory and difficulty with concentration. I started her on a dairy

free diet with ascorbic acid 1 gram after each meal, pyridoxine 250 mg

daily, zinc citrate 50 mg daily, selenium 200 mcg daily and a B

complex 50's once daily. By November 18 she was well. She had started

to improve about ten days after starting on the program. She was not

able to tolerate the selenium.

These patients had been referred after they had been examined by their

general practitioners who had not found any physical basis for their

complaints. I did not give them any dynamic psychotherapy but did give

them the kind that should be used by every physician. After presenting

their history they were told what my diagnosis was, how I would treat

it and about how long it would take to get well. Each nutrient was

described and the reason for the diet.

 

Seeing four non schizophrenic patients in one afternoon who had gotten

well or nearly well after two visits reminded me that orthomolecular

therapy should be made available to all psychiatric patients.

 

March 4,1997.Last week I discovered that I had saved British Columbia

and Saskatchewan piles of money by practicing orthomolecular medicine.

I concluded this after hearing from four patients I had treated in the

past.

 

1) During July, 1996, I saw a young woman, born in 1968 who had

suffered a post partum depression for which she was treated in

hospital on two occasions. She was treated with risperidal, one of the

three most modern tranquilizers. She heard voices when she was

pregnant, still heard her own thoughts and was delusional believing

that her four year old son was an Antichrist. She was also preoccupied

with the death of her brother who had been killed in a car accident.

He had been my patient in 1972 and had recovered from his

schizophrenia. She was also very depressed and fatigued. I advised her

to eliminate sugar from her diet, to take niacin 1 Gram after each

meal, vitamin C 1 Gram after each meal, folic acid 5 mg after each

meal, pyridoxine 250 mg daily, zinc citrate 50 mg daily and a B

complex 50's once daily. She remained on the risperdal 6 mg daily. In

March I doubled her niacin dose and in July increased it again to 3

Grams after each meal. The following November her local psychiatrist

decreased the drug to 4 mg. February 26,1997 she called. She was well

but was worried about her son who was typically hyperactive with a

short attention span. I advised her to put him on a sugar and dairy

products free diet and to add a simple B complex preparation for

children. She had observed that a Coke would drive him wild.

 

Had she remained on the drug only the odds are over 90% she would have

remained permanently ill and would cost British Columbia $2 million

over the next forty years.

 

2) The same morning I received a call from Saskatchewan from a woman

born in 1924. I had seen her in Saskatoon many years ago. She had been

suffering from severe Meniere's disease which had not responded to any

medication nor diet. On her own she had started taking small amounts

of niacin and for the first time began to get better. She came to

Victoria in December 1987 with her husband and consulted me about her

orthomolecular program. Both were normal. I suggested she remain on

the niacin 1 gram three times daily, the same amount of vitamin C,

some vitamin E and B complex 50's. In 1993 she reported that she was

normal but she was worried about her husbands arthritis. He was two

years older. He too was started on a vitamin program. February this

year she called again and told me how pleased and delighted she was at

their good state of health. Both were symptom free, They were both

leading a wonderful life, she said. That last call saved Saskatchewan

the cost of two consultations but even more saved the cost of

recurrent consultations at home with their family doctors and

specialists if they had not started on the megavitamin regimen.

 

3) An elderly man called from Victoria where he had been visiting his

family. He had wanted to see me but his wife died suddenly and he

could not. He reminded me that I had treated his daughter between 1970

and 1972 for schizophrenia with the vitamin program. She had

recovered, got better each year. Her two children were attending

University. He was delighted with her recovery. Her recovery saved

Saskatchewan $2 million. She has been well and productive for 25 years

and there is every indication she will not relapse. On tranquilizers

alone she would still be ill, a burden to herself, to her family and

to her society.

 

4) A former patient I had treated in Saskatoon 25 years ago wrote

about his mother-in-law and her identical twin sister, He gave me a

progress report on his own recovery every year end. The twins were

born in 1910. They married brothers when they were 25. His

mother-in-law was financially better of and her lifetime diet was more

nutritious. In 1966, following a series of difficulties and frequent

moves the sister began to show signs of psychiatric illness. She

fabricated stories for example. Four years later she left her husband

and worked. By this time her diet had deteriorated even more and she

basically lived on tea and toast. Eventually she had to be admitted to

a nursing home and was diagnosed Alzheimer's disease. She died in 1981.

 

As soon as this sister was diagnosed my informant became worried about

his mother-in-law because of the hereditary factor and started her on

a good multivitamin multimineral program, including the B vitamins and

vitamin C and E. She remained well on this program. Today her

son-in-law describes her as an alert eighty-six-year-old person.

....If these women had been fraternal i.e. not identical twins, this

comparison experiment would not mean much. However because they had

the same genetic makeup and because it is recognized that Alzheimer's

disease has a powerful genetic component the results are very

persuasive, In animal comparison experiments one identical twin pair

is equivalent to 40 pairs of non identical twins. This is why there is

so much excitement about the identical twin monkeys just born in the

United States. They grew from two cells taken from an eight-cell

embryo and have the same genetic make up. I doubt there is another

identical twin pair with a similar history, one on a good

orthomolecular program, the other on a poor program. It suggests to me

that if everyone were to start on a good nutritional program

supplemented with optimum doses of vitamins and minerals before age

fifty and were to remain on it the incidence of Alzheimer's disease

would drop precipitously. By keeping his mother-in-law well my

informant has saved Saskatchewan a lot of money,

 

Today, March 11, 1997, a ninety-four-year old woman came to see me. I

had been seeing her since 1992 because of her anxiety over breast

cancer. This time she had been experiencing a lot of difficulty from

congestive heart failure which was improving. She had been driven to

my office by a patient of mine who had been a chronic paranoid

schizophrenic. And this is the point of this anecdote. She told me how

kind he was to her, that he took her for walks, drove her around and

was very supportive and helpful. He represents a patient who had been

very sick, had been fired from his job as a nurse twelve times, and

even after his recovery could not get a job because the hospitals

judged him only on the way he had been, and refused to accept my

opinion that he had recovered and was able to work. He is a normal man

who has been on permanent pension, even when he did not have to be,

because of the popular view that no schizophrenic can ever recover. Of

course this is true if tranquilizers alone are used. I saw him first

in 1983 when he brought with him a list of 52 problems. By then he had

been ill for several years and had been in hospital two years before

for three months. He told me about his visual hallucinations. Once he

awakened at night and found two men in his room who were trying to

awaken him, and they were both ice cold. He heard his own thoughts and

felt unreal. He was extremely paranoid, felt people wanted him to kill

himself, there was a lot of blocking and his memory and concentration

were very poor. No wonder he was so depressed. I assumed he was

potentially violent although he had not been violent but he had

written threatening letters. I started him on treatment. By 1984 he

had recovered. He wanted to go back to work at the hospital but the

hospital would not take him after another psychiatrist had maintained

that he was still not fit to work. His behaviour had been so paranoid

they refused even to consider him. Since then he has been well. He is

kind, considerate, helpful to his neighbors. He travels each year with

individual members of his family with whom he has a good relationship.

He does a lot of volunteer work. Still it is sad that the services of

this good man have been rejected simply because he had been so sick in

the past. My 93 years old patient is very grateful and appreciates his

help. I doubt she knows anything about his previous history. He meets

my criteria for recovery i.e. he is free of symptoms and gets on well

with his family and with the community and he would be paying income

tax if his past had not been used to prevent him from ever working again.

 

The 26th Annual International Conference. Nutritional Medicine Today

(April 18,19,20. Royal York Hotel, Toronto) was a very successful

conference with over 150 participants including 100 physicians. We

discussed the treatment of depression and schizophrenia the first

half-day session. Dr. Sherry Rogers gave us a remarkable outline of

the causes and the treatment of depression. She is a specialist in

environmental medicine in private practice in Syracuse, N.Y. Her books

are excellent and she is a very skillful informative lecturer.

 

Then Dr. J. Smythies outlined the modern view of the relation of the

aminochromes to normal and schizophrenic brains. The original

transmethylation hypothesis developed by Dr. H. Osmond and Dr. J.

Smythies in 1952 led to the adrenochrome hypothesis of Hoffer, Osmond

and Smythies. Dr. Smythies was Chairman. Department of Neurosciences,

University of Alabama, for many years. He is retired but is a Senior

Research Fellow at the Institute of Neurology in London and is in the

Brain and Perception Laboratory, Department of Psychology, U.C.S.D.,

La Jolla, CA, and very active in continuing his writing for medical

and psychiatric journals. I was delighted to see John again after

about a ten years hiatus. In his lecture he outlined the massive

evidence that these aminochromes (adrenochrome is one a number of

similar compounds) are intimately involved in the functioning of the

brain. Some of this is discussed in his report " On the Function of

Meuromelanin " Proceedings of the Royal Society (London) B, 363,

491-496,1966. Also in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine,

" The Role of ascorbate in brain: therapeutic implications " . May 1996,

Volume 89, Page 241.

I wound up this first session with my report on " The Optimum Treatment

for the Schizophrenias " . I told the meeting of a discussion I had with

a couple and their daughter the night before at the reception. The

couple were friendly and relaxed and the girl was cheerful and

interested. Father reminded me that he had written to me a half-year

earlier about his daughter and I had referred her to a Toronto

Orthomolecular Psychiatrist. She had not responded to any treatment

for the ten years of her chronic schizophrenia including huge doses of

tranquilizers. On one occasion her parents complained that 70

milligrams of stelazine was of no help and was causing severe side

effects. The psychiatrist told them to increase it to 80 mg. They

dismissed him. She was started on the vitamin program and by the time

I saw her she was normal. While she was very ill they had arranged for

her to be seen by the schizophrenic clinic of one of the local

psychiatric hospitals, the best in Toronto. By the time she met with

this clinic she had already shown marked improvement. During the

intake conference the attending staff were very busy taking notes and

showing great interest in her history. Toward the end of the session

father told the group that his daughter had started on a vitamin

program and was very much better. There was a sudden hush, the

notebooks snapped shut, interest dissipated and a chill descended on

the meeting. The chief of the clinic remarked that they should stop

the vitamin program in order to test whether they were effective. She

did not give the same advice for the tranquilizers which she knew was

the only recommended treatment. Apparently the worst sin in orthodox

medicine is to see a recovery for the wrong reason. The schizophrenia

clinic knew that vitamins could not ever help anyone. The patient was

not invited to participate in the clinic program, nor of course, would

her parents have allowed her to do since she was already well on the

way to recovery and on a much lower dose of tranquilizer. I am puzzled

by the callous advice given so freely to stop the program that had

gotten her well after ten years of illness. Obviously this

psychiatrist is overly impressed with double blind therapeutic trials

during a time when this particular way of studying response is sinking

into the dust bin of history because it is inappropriate for testing

multiple programs.

 

Dr. David Horrobin Is President of the Schizophrenia Association of

Great Britain, Founder and Research Director of Efamol Professor at

Wolverhampton University and the University of Dundee and one of the

foremost experts on the essential fatty acids. In his discussion he

referred to a new finding which will markedly simplify the recognition

that schizophrenia is present. This ought to introduce some diagnostic

clarity and prevent many of these unfortunate patients from being

labeled incorrectly as bipolar or borderline personality disorders. He

has developed a simple skin test. An adhesive strip containing four

different concentrations of niacin is placed on the skin and left

there five minutes. The strip is removed. Normally the niacin in the

patch will cause some reddening; a mild flush or dilatation at the

point of contact. Non schizophrenic people are much more sensitive to

this effect while schizophrenic patients are not. About 70% of the

schizophrenic patients will not flush at levels which will flush

normal people. This test may soon be available commercially. His

report created great interest at a previous meeting in the USA where

he presented this finding.

 

For more information:

The Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, 16 Florence Avenue, Toronto,

Ontario, Canada M2N 1E9 Fax 416 733 2117, Telephone 416 733 2352

E Mail: center

 

Schizophrenia and Crime in Victoria

July 5,1997. Recently a twenty two-year-old man killed his mother. He

was schizophrenic and found unfit to stand trial. Until he is fit he

will remain in a mental institution. His father demands an inquiry and

a coroner's inquest will be held. A few days earlier a patient walked

out of the local psychiatric hospital, got on a bus, and when his

transfer was challenged hit the driver. He was eventually subdued and

taken into custody by the police. These are a few of the anti social

acts committed by schizophrenic patients. The Times Colonist, Victoria

July 4, 1997 reported that in March Aaron was charged with mischief

and he was held in jail. He was assessed in jail by a psychiatrist who

concluded that although he had no violent thoughts and no prior

history of violence he should be in hospital. However the hospital was

full. Rather than have Aaron in jail his mother agreed to take him

home on bail on condition he take his medication and attend at the

outpatient forensic clinic. His father commented " No family in this

province is equipped to provide home care for someone as sick as my

son. Leaving him in the care of family is like sending someone who

needs heart surgery back to his parents house for treatment " . Aaron

had stopped taking his medication two weeks before. But he continued

seeing a psychiatrist and probation officer once a week and they

noticed nothing wrong, according to his father. Neighbors had been

calling the police for weeks before the killing because of his bizarre

behaviour.

 

Rick Cooper of the B.C. Schizophrenia Society said there are few

supports for these sick people, that there is no one responsible for

ensuring that they take their medication regularly, that there is

almost no treatment provided for patients not in hospital. The chief

of police reported that crime by mental patients had increased from

about 200 each year to around 250 in 1996.

 

The Times Colonist, July 5, 1997 carried more information. The paper

quoted the father " During the past few weeks I have heard dozens and

dozens of real-life stories from strangers and friends alike about

other families of schizophrenics who were at their wit's end,

abandoned by a health system that had little to offer unless a crime

had been committed " .

 

In their communications with the public the mental health associations

and the professional people involved in the care and treatment of

schizophrenics have maintained that these patients are as law abiding

as the general population. There are two aspects to the crime problem;

these are the quantity and the quality of the crime. It is true that

schizophrenic patients are not more prone to commit crime than are the

average population but it is also true that schizophrenics are much

more apt to commit strange, bizarre and totally illogical crimes than

are the rest of the population. That is because they commit their

crimes in response to their hallucinations and their thought disorder.

Thus, many years ago a man was committed to hospital in Regina because

he was chasing a young girl on the main street. When I examined him he

told me he had seen a vast illumination in the heavens as we was

walking west in the late afternoon and that from this illumination he

heard a voice say " You have syphilis and to be cured you must have

intercourse with a virgin " . He had both a visual and an auditory

hallucination and he thought the voice was the voice of God and must

be obeyed. He recovered on megavitamin therapy and remained well

thereafter.

 

Another case was the Hoffman, case in northern Saskatchewan, Kahan

(1975). A schizophrenic young man was in the Saskatchewan Hospital,

North Battleford on medication. In hospital he described his

hallucinations to his psychiatrist. He heard and saw both the Devil

and his guardian angel. They were fighting with each other. The angel

wanted him to be good and the Devil tempted him with the world's

riches if only he would kneel before him. His psychiatrist ignored

these symptoms. He was discharged and given a months supply of

medication. A few weeks after he ran out of the drug the Devil came to

him at night, following a splitting headache. He described him as a

6-foot 2-inch huge man with the face of a pig who ordered him to get

into his car, to drive exactly 60 minutes and wherever he then was to

kill. He stopped at the Hoffman farmhouse, and shot and killed every

member of the family except a baby who was crawling on the floor. By

then, he told me, he was too tired of killing. He was found not guilty

by reason of insanity and was committed to a mental hospital.

 

The criticism hurled at the community mental care supports and

facilities are always directed against those matters which appear to

be most important such as not enough beds, not taking ones medication,

not enough community supports. They can all be described as factors

which can be healed by throwing more money into the system. With more

money there would be more psychiatrists, more beds, more community

support nurses, more follow-up workers, better shelters and so on.

While these are all needed one of the most important aspects of the

problem is totally ignored. That is the need for more effective

treatment. The situation can be blamed squarely on the psychiatrists

who insist that the only treatment of value is the use of drugs. But

these drugs, while controlling symptoms, do not lead to recovery. On

the contrary, it is impossible to be well while on tranquilizer

medicine. The side effects are so troublesome that too many patients

refuse to stay on the medication unless they are forced to in hospital

or by injection. If we are going to have any impact on the intensity

and quality of the crimes we must improve the quality of treatment.

Psychiatrists must be made more accountable for the results they are

getting. Psychiatric Institutions must be made forced to release

annual reports showing what proportion of their schizophrenic patients

have recovered and why they are not doing any better. They must be

forced to examine seriously at orthomolecular psychiatry which yields

results very much better.

 

Around 1968 a young man took his rifle, went to his parent's bedroom

and fired the gun at the pillow between their heads. No one was hurt.

He ran from the room and out into the mid winter snow and cold (forty

below) in his bare feet. I found him to be schizophrenic. I described

the situation to the judge who released him to my care at City

Hospital in Saskatoon. I treated him with megavitamin therapy. He

recovered and when I last heard from him, he was happily married

living somewhere in Northern Canada. A second example was a graduate

student in physics at the University. He was shooting at cars driving

down the road. He was referred to me. I found him schizophrenic. He

had a history of illogical, silly and dangerous acts. For example on

one occasion he hid in the stacks of the public library in Washington

D.C. and when everyone had gone home he enjoyed himself by pushing all

the stacks over. I started him on vitamin therapy. Three months later

he was in a cold sweat with anxiety. He told he had just realized that

he might have killed someone. He continued treatment, was released by

the court on condition he return to the US. Last I heard he was a

professor in physics in one of the mid-west Universities in the US.

 

I do not claim that every patient will be treated as successfully as

this. But I do claim that many more will and that we have to improve

the quality and quantity of treatment for all patients so that the

proportion of the crimes committed by them will vanish. Every person

charged with a crime which contains the elements of the bizarre, the

difficult to understand, the illogical acts, should be examined to

find out what the determinants of that behaviour were so that

appropriate treatment can be started and combined with punishment in

most cases. Punishment alone is of little value. Treatment without

punishment is better but best of all would be good treatment program

combined with minimum punishment.

 

Kahan, F.H. Schizophrenia, Mass Murder and the Law. J. Orthomolecular

Psychiatry, 2,1256-146, 1975.

 

Today (July 5, 1998) Sixty Minutes described the tragic story of a New

York family who adopted a son from a respected, not-for-profit

adoption agency. He was intelligent, fit, interested in sports and

loved by his family as he in turn loved them. In his mid teens he

began to skip classes, later became clearly paranoid and eventually

was admitted many times to New York hospitals for treatment of his

schizophrenia. After several years the family and especially the

adopted son tried to obtain information about his parents, especially

his mother but the institute would, at first, not release anything and

later under pressure informed the son that his mother had episodes of

depression. It was common policy for adoption agencies everywhere not

to release information about the parents of the children they placed.

In many areas this is now mandatory. The family sued the institute and

after seven years it has still not been settled. But the court ordered

the institute to release their file. The file reported that his mother

had been a chronic schizophrenic patient, that she had been

lobotomized, and had spent time in hospitals. They also found that the

father had been classed as mentally ill. In the mean time their son

continued to suffer, continued to have treatment and eventually died

at age 29, from a drug reaction. The name of the drug was not given. I

would guess it was clozapine because it is used for refractory

patients and it does kill a very few patients.

 

The Sixty Minutes report concentrated on the tragedy and the loss of

the son to his family as a result of the failure of the institute to

provide the essential information. However one must ask What

difference would it have made? Suppose the institute had given them

the information that his mother was schizophrenic, that 10% of

children of one schizophrenic parent will become schizophrenic, that

if both parents are ill half the children will become ill. The parents

might have decided that since there was a 90% chance the child would

not become schizophrenic that they could live with these odds. But in

either case, knowing the odds, or not knowing anything about the

mother the outcome would have been exactly the same for with orthodox,

xenobiotic treatment there is no way by which they could have

prevented the illness or treat it properly. This is the real tragedy

of this very sad anecdote. But it could have been different. The

parents should have been advised of the mother's illness. They should

have provided information that if there was any significant change in

behaviour or learning ability of their child they should promptly seek

help from an orthomolecular psychiatrist who could start the correct

treatment and that this is the only way this tragedy could have been

avoided. In New York City, The Fryer Research Center, at 30E 55th St,

10016, 212 808 4940, has been treating schizophrenic and other

patients with success for at least the past 25 years. This center

might have helped this desperate family seeking help for their son.

 

The following anecdote illustrates an entirely different outcome. In

1960 Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, asked me to see

a girl, seven years old. Anabel was adopted by her grandfather and his

second wife. Anabel's mother was a chronic schizophrenic patient, in a

chronic back ward of one of the mental hospitals. I knew Anabels

mother having treated her at University Hospital in Saskatoon for a

couple of months. She was well after discharge but could not find

anyone in Washington D.C. who would continue the program. She

eventually relapsed and went back to hospital. Anabel's adopting

parents were very worried because she had been diagnosed retarded, and

it was very difficult to deal with her behaviour. She was being

prepared to go to a special school in New York City for the retarded.

Knowing the odds she might be showing the earliest manifestations of

her mothers illness I advised them to start her on niacinamide, 1 gram

three times each day after meals. For two years there was no change

and then she began to get well. She graduated from university on the

Dean's Honor list. Later she married, raised a family. She became a

piano teacher. I was in contact with her a few months ago. She is

still well. Had Anabel not been treated with this B-3 vitamin I have

no doubt she and her family might have suffered the same fate that

enveloped the family of the young man who was killed by a drug. By the

way each year, in the United States and Canada, over 110,000 patients

die from the proper use of drugs in hospitals. I think it would be

logical for the family also to sue the hospitals who did not treat

their son with the most modern and most effective treatment.

Antipsychotic drugs, used alone, do not allow schizophrenic patients

to become normal.

 

Starting a Schizophrenic Patient on Orthomolecular Treatment.

Today, July 6, 1998, I interviewed K.J., just turned 20, with his

mother. They were both very concerned about the side effects he

suffered from Olanzapine. He was taking 20 milligrams daily. K.J. was

well until one night in January, 1998, he suffered a horrible

nightmare, ran out of his room because he believed the devils were

chasing him. The next day he remained terrified and quiet. Over the

next few days his behaviour was bizarre and he was admitted to the

local psychiatric hospital for about 2 weeks. He was treated with

fluanxol but serious side effects after discharge forced him back into

hospital for one month. This time he was given Olanzapine. With this

medication he was quiet and was able to get along in the community in

a special home. For the previous ten days before he saw me he was with

his mother. He was given his diagnosis but no further explanation was

offered.

 

With his mother's assistance I completed a mental examination. He had

perceptual changes including visions of the Devil. He did not hear

voices but did hear himself think. He was paranoid although it was not

as bad now as it had been. He had believed he would be poisoned, that

the Devil was after him and he believed people were staring at him. He

had been very depressed, and still was very tired, sleeping 16 hours

each day. He also gained 50 pounds while on Olanzapine and was

beginning to look very pudgy. I advised him to follow a dairy free and

low sugar diet. To this he was to add niacinamide 1 gram after each

meal, the same amount of vitamin C and one B-Complex 50's tablet each

day. This was added to the Olanzapine. During the interview I outlined

for him my version of what I think schizophrenia is, why I was

advising him to take these nutrients and why I wanted him on this

diet. His mother told me that as a child he had been very allergic to

milk. In the hospital he drank three glasses of milk each day and

continued to do so at home. Also in hospital he learned how to become

a heavy smoker. The psychiatric ward had the only smoker's room in the

whole hospital.

 

He will be seen again in about three months. He can not come more

frequently since he lives too far away from Victoria. His treatment

will be monitored by his local psychiatrist and by his family doctor.

Every time I see him I will add a progress note to this report. This

running report will illustrate the process of orthomolecular

treatment. October 7, 1998. His mother called to cancel his

appointment. She reported that he was going to school and did not want

to miss classes and that they would call again for another

appointment. This indicates to me that he is already substantially

better since he is now able to concentrate on his studies and felt

this was more important than visiting me many miles from his home.

July 14, 1998 I interviewed a 24 year old woman, N.S. For the past two

years she suffered from intense fear and panic in the presence of

people. She could barely cope having to interact with one, but with

more than one the anxiety was intense, often leading to panic. For

this reason she had been too fearful to even consult a psychiatrist.

Her family doctor had prescribed the anti depressant, Zoloft, 25 mg

daily, a month earlier and this has been helpful in decreasing the

level of anxiety. She was forced to leave her mother who she described

as insanely jealous, difficult and hostile and lived with her father

for two years. Since then she was on her own and when I saw her was

unemployed and living on pension. Her mother's behaviour was typical

of schizophrenic behaviour. My patient suffered from the two sets of

symptoms characteristic of this disease. She had perceptual changes

such as feeling unreal, hearing her own thoughts, and believing people

were staring at her. She was paranoid with some insight but believed

people were talking about her, in a derogatory way. She was also

depressed, very anxious and fatigued. I diagnosed her as suffering

from schizophrenia and when I discussed this with her she agreed and

said she had thought the same thing earlier and wondered whether she

had gotten it from her mother.

 

I asked her to eliminate sugar from her diet, to add niacin, 500

milligrams after each meal, and eventually to increase it to 1 gram

three times daily. To this I added vitamin C 500 milligrams after

meals, folic acid 5 mg after meals, pyridoxine 250 mg each day and

finally zinc citrate 50 milligrams each day. I reassured her that if

she followed this program her chances were very good that she would be

much better within 6 to 9 months. Her intense anxiety and panic arose

from her intense paranoid ideas. She came again with her father

February 15, 2000. Her father told us that he had seen tremendous

improvement in two years, much more than she herself felt had

occurred. She knew she was getting better steadily but she was still

concerned about anxiety which was not as bad as before and she was

worried that she found it difficult to interact with more than one

person at a time. She also had more insight and became aware that

during childhood she had major problems controlling her thinking. She

wanted reassurance that she would eventually become normal. I assured

her that I thought this would occur over the next year or two during

which time she would continue to improve. She spoke about her family

and how she felt inferior and strange because she could not think as

quickly as they could and that she felt comfortable only with her

close friend. This is a phase that patients with schizophrenia often

have to go through. They are much better and realize how ill they have

been. Support and counseling are very helpful during this phase as is

understanding from family and friends.

 

She came back October 5, 1998. She was significantly better, felt less

unreal, was less paranoid, had more insight and was beginning to

regain social skills that her disease had removed from her. Her

artistic skills were coming back. She had gone off her antidepressant

and vitamins for a week and during that week suffered a relapse with

severe fatigue and more difficult paranoid ideas. In the past when, on

occasion, she smoked pot she would become catatonic. This time when

she smoked pot once this did not happen. I estimate that she is about

25% better. She was pleased as was I. I did not change the program.

 

February 1, 1999 she told me that two weeks ago she became aware that

she was beginning to recover. Her thinking had become more organized,

her mood was level, she had more energy. She had developed severe side

effects to the anti depressant she had had to take before. She

discontinued the medication and continued to improve, She suffered

much less pain and had fewer perceptual abnormalities. She still had a

major problem. She was too jealous but she recognized this was a

problem. This is called being paranoid with insight. She was troubled

by this and I reassured her that this too would gradually disappear. I

increased the niacin to 1.5 grams after each of three meals. She was

concerned about her partner and had arranged that he too would be

referred.

She came again in October, 1999. Her schizophrenia was much better

with a major decrease in all the symptoms but she was still too

depressed and did not sleep well. I added 25 milligrams of

amitriptyline combined with 2 milligrams of perphenazine. These are

very low doses but I have found them to be very effective for many

patients who need very little medication. For many of my patients they

are better than the hot shot new tranquilizers now available at

exorbitant costs. She was still taking the vitamins and was on niacin

2 grams three times daily (6,000 mg total) in spite of her family

doctor who advised her that this would cause liver damage. This is an

idea, a myth, so well engrained in the medical profession that it is a

major factor in preventing them from giving their patients adequate

doses. She had been through three very stressful months because her

partner was not well and his behaviour kept her under constant stress

and uncertainty. But in spite of this major stress she continued to

improve.

 

February 24, 1999 I saw her partner. His main complaint was that he

could not think clearly, that he suffered from irrational ideas, that

his short term memory was non existent and that he had zero

concentration. As a result he had to be supervised by NS even to minor

matters such as reminding him to eat. She had advised him to start on

vitamins and he took niacin 1 gram each day for the month before I saw

him. In that month he improved significantly, found his brain was

coming under his control. I increased his niacin to 1 grams three

times daily and asked him to continue the program NS had advised him

to follow.

 

When seen last in November there was no doubt NS was better, was

better able to function. I increased her niacin again to 2.5 grams,

three times daily (7,500 mg total) and added one gram of salmon oil,

for its omega three content, three times daily.

 

Murder in Washington, D.C.

July 31, 1998 Russell Eugene Weston Jr. forced his way in and killed

two Capital policemen. This tragedy raised the usual questions about

this event. Why did he do it? Was he mentally sick? Did his background

have anything to do with it? Was it due to the availability of guns?

Could it have been prevented? And so on. In this case it is clear that

he was schizophrenic, that he had been treated in a mental hospital,

that he must have been given medication (tranquilizers) at one phase

of his illness and that those who knew him appear not to have been

surprised. One psychiatrist stated that he was not taking his

medication. This was probably true. But no one asked the most

important question of all; Why was he not treated successfully. There

is no doubt that he shot the policemen because he was suffering from a

paranoid delusional state and that this may have been in response to

hallucinations. He may have thought that he must bring down the

government, either to save his own life or to save society. He may

have been given a mission by his voices. There is no end to the type

of bizarre ideas he acted out. We will never know unless his

psychiatrists actually ask him why he did what he did and whether or

not he did suffer hallucinations. But if he had been treated

successfully he would have lost his delusional state and he would not

have shot the policemen. If he had received orthomolecular treatment,

he probably would not have shot these two men. Not only are the

results of treatment so much better, it is also easier for patients to

remain on the program because the severe side effects, which patients

object to, are avoided. In future, as these schizophrenic criminal

acts continue to plague society, the family, the press, the society,

the criminal investigative team should always ask this very important

question. Was the criminal ever given psychiatric treatment and what

was the response and why was the best available therapy not used. It

is time psychiatry took some responsibility for these major, tragic,

criminal events.

 

Psychiatrists report that patients with schizophrenia are as law

abiding as the general population. This is true. The same percentage

of each group will commit antisocial acts. But there is a major

difference. The schizophrenic criminal is most apt to act out bizarre

delusions or fantasies and, therefore, when s/he does commit a crime

it will be more bizarre and much more difficult to understand. It is,

in fact, easily comprehensible if the criminal will tell what the

hallucinations and delusions were.

 

According to an Associated Press report, Democrats and Republicans in

Congress asked the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill to draft

suggestions on improving mental-health care. I doubt NAMI will ask the

right question. NAMI appears to be content with the psychiatric

treatment offered by psychiatrists and they devote their attention to

other matters such as a having facilities available. In any treatment

program the following measures are important (1) the medical treatment

-- this includes good nutrition and psychiatric care, (2) the site of

the treatment, the shelter i.e. hospital, home, the streets (3) the

ancillary care i.e. from nurses, social workers, psychologists and so

on. I found many years ago that of these, the most important was the

medical treatment. In other words, orthomolecular treatment, even in a

very low quality hospital or home is better for the patient than

standard tranquilizer treatment in the best possible psychiatric ward.

About 30 years ago, I found that the response to my treatment of a

large number of schizophrenic treatment-failures from all over North

America was the same when they were housed in a nursing home for $20

per day, compared to my results with similar patients treated in a

University Hospital, for $80 per day. From over 100 chronic patients

who came to Saskatoon to the nursing home, half returned to their

homes in USA and the rest of Canada much improved. They were in the

nursing home less than three months. They had previously failed to

respond to many admissions to the mental hospitals from their own

region including the Menninger Institute, then considered one of the best.

 

October 8, 1998. Three years ago Max arrived in my office from the

mainland. He was 18 years old. He complained that he could not

concentrate, had very poor recall and was very tired. He became

depressed two years earlier and had to drop out of grade 11. After

that he began to neglect himself, lost interest in his peers. The anti

depressant Paxil did not help, nor did Manerix. At the end of 1994 he

was in hospital. After discharge he deteriorated further. He drank

excessively, began to hallucinate voices and visions and on one

occasion was found confused and disrobing on the street. He was

admitted for two months. This time he was placed on resperidone, 6

milligrams daily, the modern tranquilizer and surmontil one of the

older anti depressants. His first diagnosis was bipolar later changed

to schizo-affective. His mental state was fairly typical with

hallucinations which be believed to be real, severe paranoid and

grandiose delusions and a lot of anxiety with depression. I started

him on niacinamide 3 grams daily, ascorbic acid 3 grams daily,

pyridoxine 250 milligrams per day, zinc citrate 50 milligrams daily,

selenium 200 micrograms daily and vitamin B-complex 50's one each day.

He remained on his medication as well. In August of 1997 he was

started on lithium carbonate, 900 milligrams each day.

 

I saw him in October 1998 for the twelfth time, (in three years). In

the meantime he or his family had called me about six times. During

this last visit he happily told me he had graduated from Grade 12 with

a ninety average and was planning further studies. He was free of

perceptual complaints, and his thinking was good although he still

found it difficult to concentrate. His mood was level but a bit too

flat. He was on niacin 2 grams per day as he could not tolerate any

more. His resperidone was down to 1 mg daily and he planned to

decrease it to 0.5 mg.

 

December 1999 he had improved even more. He was taking post grade

twelve courses and making a B average. He had been able to deal with a

moderate depression starting about two months earlier and ending one

month later. His resperidone was down to 0.25 mg daily and Paxil 30

milligrams daily. I added salmon oil, 3 grams after each meal, to help

stabilize his mood even more. He was relaxed, alert, communicative,

free of symptoms; in fact he was normal.

 

Assuming he remains as well, or even better, his recovery will save

the province of British Columbia 2 million dollars over a forty year

life span. But like most psychiatrists the province refuses to take

this work seriously. His family are very pleased.

 

Edmond Yu, born Oct 2, 1961 was killed by police bullets, February 20,

1997.This is another tragedy which could have been avoided had Edmond

been treated for his schizophrenia using Orthomolecular Methods. The

Toronto Star, October 3, 1998 under its Insight Section Headed the

story " Edmond Yu's mental illness killed his dreams. But it was the

way we treat the mentally ill that eventually killed him " . But the

writer, Scott Simmie, was not being critical of the psychiatric

treatment offered this young patient. The tenor of the report is that

society somehow failed by not paying enough attention, by not

providing enough support, by not providing enough of the psychosocial

supports that could have been provided. Perhaps had the supports been

better he might not have been killed but it is certain he would not

have gotten any better because the fault lies, not in the community,

but in the psychiatric community which depended solely on the use of

drugs, the modern standard treatment for this disease.

 

Edward was a brilliant student, tops in his classes , who in his

second year in medical school became psychotic. He became seculsive,

irritable, paranoid and his behaviour became antisocial. His family

and friends made strenuous efforts to have him admitted to hospital

for treatment but it was difficult because of the illogical mental

health laws in Ontario. The authorities decided that he could not be

admitted even though he needed help because he was not dangerous to

himself or to others. It turned out that he was in fact dangerous,

mostly to himself, and to others and that he should have been treated

adequately in hospital long enough to stabilize his condition and

started on the path to recovery. Eventually he was in the Clarke

Institute several times and given the usual tranquilizers. But he

would not take them because of the severe side effects including

tardive dyskinesia, weight gain and it was impossible for him to

study. He could never complete medicine while on tranquilizers. He is

described as non compliant, a very common problem when only drugs are

used. Eventually he drifted downward and downward ending up in the new

mental hospitals of this age, the streets of downtown North America.

In Toronto it is the city surrounding the mental hospital on Queen

street. He was shot by the police in self defense when they tried to

apprehend him.

 

This is how he should have been treated. When he first became ill and

this should have been recognized by the professors of medicine at the

college, he should have been seen by a psychiatrist who would have

diagnosed him properly and started him on proper treatment using

nutrition, medication and supplements. At this stage he would have

been much more cooperative and would have stuck to the regimen. As he

began to improve he would not have needed so much drug and he would

have been spared the side effects which prevented him from staying on

the medication. If he had been too ill to cooperate as an out patient

he should have been admitted and then placed on the proper

orthomolecular program and kept in hospital until he had regained his

insight. Then he would have been followed as an outpatient. Had be

been given the benefit of this treatment the odds are great that he

would have graduated and become a useful physician. I know of 17 young

men who became schizophrenic in their teens. They were treated

properly, became doctors and went on to have successful practices.

Several became professors at medical colleges and one became President

of a very large psychiatric organization. But Edward was denied his

chance to recover. The fault lies not only in the community but mainly

in the psychiatric profession, which stoutly refuses to look at

anything but drugs as if they were beholden to the drug companies who

make these drugs. The community must be blamed because it did not ask

the right question and demand the right answer. The right question is

Why do you psychiatrists not do a much better job of treating these

patients.

 

J.B., Born in 1970, came to see me with his parents in August, 1998.

He told me that five years earlier he suddenly became catatonic and

was admitted to hospital for one month. Since then he was in hospital

for twelve admissions, each lasting one to two months, except for the

last one when he was admitted to University Hospital for 3 months and

then transferred to the closest mental hospital for 7 months. Since

then he has been living in a group home on medication.

 

He had suffered from hearing voices were most often derogatory about

him but occasionally he found them helpful. They were not troublesome

at the time of my examination. He had thought he was being poisoned in

the past and had been very depressed. I started him on niacin 1 gram,

three times daily after meals, the same amount of vitamin C, folic

acid 5 milligrams after meals, zinc citrate 50 milligrams daily and B

Complex 100's, one daily.

 

He and his parents came into my office two months later. I knew

immediately that he was better because all three were smiling broadly.

He told me he had more energy, felt better, and a noted a return of a

sense of well being. He had started taking courses to complete his

high school and in the few examinations made grades over 90%. I

increased the niacin to 1.5 grams, after meals, added selenium 300

micrograms twice daily, Evening Primrose Oil 2 capsules daily and

increased the B complex to 100's, one daily. Patient and both parents

were much more optimistic and we discussed realistically what he would

do after he recovered. He considered the idea that he might become a

doctor. For readers who think this is a pipe dream, I know personally

17 men who became ill in their teens, recovered and became physicians,

some achieving very high professional status. I will add to this

report in three months.

 

He came with his parents on February 24, 1999. He was more relaxed,

the voices were less troublesome and he felt better. His psychiatrist

in his home town had decreased his clozapine. His mother told me that

this was the first time in five years that he had been able to write

examinations without decompensating with the stress. His marks ranged

in the high A's. He planned to review more of his high school subjects

in order to refresh his memory and then to get back to University. He

spoke about becoming a psychiatrist. I encouraged him to think this

way. We need as many orthomolecular psychiatrists as we can get. All

three were pleased with his response. He smiled frequently.

 

My book " Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia " is now available from Quarry

Health Books. Quarry Press, P.O. Box 1061, 240 King Street, Kingston,

Ontario, Canada, K7L 4Y5. E Mail info Its subtitle is

" Discovery, Recovery, Controversy " This book contains much of the

original data from our double blind controlled experiments conducted

in Saskatchewan between 1952 and 1960. The material was too voluminous

to be published in medical journals. How To Live With Schizophrenia,

will be published in a new edition from the same publisher. " Dr

Hoffer's Guide to Natural Nutrition for Children " is through the proof

state. Same publisher. It is an answer to the Ritalin craze now

sweeping North America. If you value your own health and the health of

your family you must read these books.

 

The 28th Annual International Conference of the International Society

of Orthomolecular Medicine (ISOM) on Nutritional Medicine Today was

held in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, April 16

to 18, 1999. People who profit from and enjoy these conferences

include physicians, other healing professional persons and intelligent

lay persons. Seventeen countries are represented in ISOM. " Superman "

Actress Margot Kidder was the keynote speaker. She narrates and

appears in the film " Masks of Madness: Science of Healing " It is

produced by Sisyphus Communications. In this excellent film physicians

who treat patients with schizophrenia and patients who were treated

successfully appear and tell their story. They pay income tax, one of

my hallmark characteristics of recovery. These patients, on drugs

alone, would still be languishing in their illness with no hope of

recovery. This video is available for sale from the Canadian

Schizophrenia Foundation. For more information about the film, contact

CSF at centre.

 

May 6, 1999. Yesterday, while I was shopping with my wife, a man came

up to me and greeted me as if he knew me. He told me I had seen him

many years earlier and he added he had not had a drink in 16 years. He

was well and neatly dressed and buying groceries as my wife and I

were. He was still taking three grams of niacin which he thought was

great and we discussed the best way to take it. This morning I looked

up his file. I first saw him in 1976 in the intensive care unit of the

psychiatric hospital. He had suffered from mood swings all of his

life. His diagnosis was chronic schizophrenia. He was admitted to a

chronic mental hospital in 1970 following abuse of amphetamines. After

that he was admitted to many hospitals. He suffered from

hallucinations, voices and visions, paranoid ideas, mood swings and

was often hyperexcitable. He was very depressed. He had been in

several fights, I considered him either suicidal or homicidal. He was

admitted again in 1977 to another service and was not given any

vitamins. Of course he had also been diagnosed bipolar. He drank a lot

and used street drugs. After I saw him again I started him on niacin 1

gram after each meal, and ascorbic acid the same dose. I saw him last

August 5, 1981. He had been abstinent for 17 days. His response to

niacin and ascorbic acid illustrates once more what can be achieved

with chronic patients if they continue to remain on these vitamins for

many years.

 

December 3rd, 1999 Susan Sachs, New York Times, reported in the Globe

and Mail, Toronto, the death of Gidone Busch in Brooklyn, New York. A

grand jury will begin hearing evidence. The most important question

will not be asked. Why was this young man, at age 21 a promising

medical student, not treated successfully so that his psychotic

actions led to his death. His history as described by Miss Sachs is

typically the history of an intelligent schizophrenic person. His

father, a retired dentist, described him " He had a mental illness; no

question about it " " But he was not a violent person. He was never

violent " . He was committed to psychiatric hospital three times and

there diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. Will the psychiatrists who

treated him be invited to talk about his illness, about the

tranquilizers they gave him, about his failure to get well and will

they be asked why they did not give him orthomolecular treatment which

had a much greater chance of restoring him to normal. I doubt it.

Isn't it about time that psychiatry is asked these difficult

questions. When surgeons botch up their surgery they are soon called

to task by the pathologists. Should we not have the same system for

psychiatric failures. Should not psychiatrists use the best treatment,

not the most popular ones.

 

Dr. Miriam Shuchman, Globe and Mail, Toronto, August 24, 1999, in

discussing medical mistakes referred to the suggestion by Dr. Don

Berwick and Dr. Lucian Leape published in the British Medical Journal

that medicine needs to learn from the aviation industry. In the

aviation industry the fatality rate has fallen significantly despite

increases in volume and complexity. Every major crash is followed by

an investigation to consider the causes and how to prevent similar

accidents. This I think is a great idea. Every time a schizophrenic

patient kills or is killed after treatment there should be a similar

intense investigation to consider the causes, and how it might have

been prevented by better treatment. About 50 years ago at a clinical

meeting for residents and staff I, then one of the professors of

psychiatry, made the same suggestion. We were discussing the fact that

some patients returned to hospital very soon after discharge. I

suggested that we ought to examine every failure to determine why

whether it was the difficulty in treating that patient, was it that

the wrong treatment had been used, was it anyone of many psychosocial

factors. This I explained would allow us to learn much more about

treatment and might decrease the number of readmissions. The revolving

door policy in psychiatry was just beginning to flower. I was greeted

by a sudden chill, a cold silence, not a word of criticism nor support

and the discussion continued as if I had not been there.

 

This is another anecdote describing two female schizophrenic patients,

one sick for a short time and the other sick for many years. Mary,

born in 1976 , became depressed five years ago and responded well

after 2.5 weeks in hospital to antidepressant medication. She remained

well until three months before I saw her. This time her depression did

not lift even with the same medication. She described it as much more

severe. But her clinical diagnosis was schizophrenia since she heard

voices which were very real with some insight that they were not real,

she suffered shadow illusions, heard herself think, had many

nightmares, was unreal and believed that people were staring at her.

Often during the day she was disoriented, often paranoid even about

her husband, her memory and concentration were very poor and she was

very depressed and tired. Her HOD scores were all very high, within

the high schizophrenic range. They were total score 105, perceptual

score 21, paranoid score 8 and depression score 16. The normal scores

are under 30, under 3, under 3 and under 3 respectively. I started her

on niacin 1 gram three times each day after meals, the same amount of

vitamin C, folic acid 5 milligrams after each meal and zinc citrate 50

milligrams once each day. At that time she was also taking luvox, an

antidepressant 150 milligrams , pindolol 2.5 milligrams three times

daily, valium 10 milligrams daily and halcion for sleep 0.5 milligrams

at bedtime. I saw her two months later and she was normal. She had

weaned herself off all the medication. Her scores were 10,2,1 and 1,

all normal. She was delighted with her recovery as was her husband.

This will be her lifetime program. The other patient, Alice, was born

in 1944. She suffered her first depression when she was seventeen and

was committed to a mental hospital for three months. She was again in

hospital when she as nineteen. I saw her for the first time in 1984 By

that time she had been in various hospitals at least eleven times,

each admission ranging from 1.5 to 4 months. She had spent 11% of her

life in hospitals. Since I first took her on she has been in hospital

twice, in 1987 and in 1991 for 2 months each. She remained on the

orthomolecular program faithfully and is well. She is now making

strenuous efforts to complete grade 12 and later will take a

secretarial course. She free of schizophrenic symptoms, gets on well

with her family and the community and would be paying income tax if

she had not been struck so severely by this chronic illness and if she

had been treated properly when she first became ill when she was 17

years old. She does community volunteer work while pursuing her

studies. She has been under my care for 15 years. Mary will not repeat

Alice's history because she is being treated with orthomolecular methods.

 

December 17th, 1999: A young woman brought her psychotic mother. Her

mother was guided by her daughter and walked with her eyes closed. I

though she was blind and retarded. She was neither. She first became

sick in 1960 following a stillbirth and a hysterectomy. Since then she

was been in a mental hospital more than half of the time, continually

since 1990. Her current diagnosis was bipolar psychosis but not having

access to her first admission records I do not know what she was then

diagnosed. She was on a two week leave from the hospital so that her

daughter could bring her to see me. She had several series of

electroconvulsive treatments in the past and was on five different

modern drugs currently. But in spite of at least 5 million dollars

worth of treatment in the hospital she was just as sick as she had

ever been. The new drugs cost at least twenty times as much.

Eventually she opened her eyes and spoke briefly to me admitting that

she was always hearing voices who told her she was a very bad person

and that she had killed people, referring to the still birth. Her

daughter had read Miss Margot Kidders account of her recovery, was

inspired and became determined to help her mother. Had she been

started on niacin in 1960 she surely would have been well in a few

years and her life and that of her family entirely different. She was

schizophrenic. I do not accept that bipolar patients hear voices all

the time and see visions. This is characteristic of schizophrenia with

mood swings. But she could have been labeled schizo-affective and the

treatment would have been the same. She represents the best that

modern psychiatry can do, and it is not good enough. Unfortunately

because she has been sick so long and exposed to the sick atmosphere

and attitudes of the chronic mental hospital it will take a long time,

perhaps up to ten years or longer. But her daughter was determined she

would help no matter how long it took. The psychiatric care given to

her by the Province of British Columbia so far cost about three

million dollars. She is worse today than she was so many years ago

because her life has been destroyed by the kind of care given her, by

the disease itself unchecked and by the medication she is now on. The

retail price of the five modern drugs she is on cost about 450 dollars

each month. This should be contrasted with the story of my patient

Mary, not her real name, described in How To Live With Schizophrenia.

In 1953 after 14 years in a chronic mental hospital she was started on

niacin 3 grams each day and we took her into our home for about 2

years. She recovered and has worked since. She retired several years

ago on full pension. She was one of the best workers on the cleaning

staff of the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The

cost of treating her after we took her into our home has been well

under 1000 dollars for the niacin and vitamin C. These two cases

represent the real cost of sloth and inertia in the psychiatric

profession. When they recover they pay income tax. When they are

treated with or without drugs only they do not.

 

Tranquilizers cause brain damage. The amount of the damage depends on

the total dose in grams. Thus if a patient takes 100 milligrams each

day of one of the older drugs for 1000 days, the total dose is 100,000

milligrams or 10 grams. One multiplies the daily average dose by the

number of days on that drug. On the internet, L. Stevens, a lawyer,

described the tranquilizer psychosis as follows. " These major

tranquilizers cause misery - not tranquility. They physically,

neurologically blot out most of a person's ability to think and act,

even at commonly given doses. By disabling people, they can stop

almost any thinking or behaviour the therapist wants to stop. But this

is simply disabling people, not therapy. The drug temporarily disables

or permanently destroys good aspects of a person's personality as much

as the bad. Whether and to what extent the disability imposed by the

drug can be removed by discontinuing the drug depends on how long the

drug is given and at how great a dose. The so-called major

tranquilizers antipsychotic/neuroleptic drugs damage the brain more

clearly, severely and permanently than any others used in psychiatry.

Stevens referred to Professors Joyce G Small and Iver F Small, Indiana

University, who criticized psychiatrists for using psychoactive drugs

known to have neurotoxic effects. He also referred to Professor Conrad

M Swartz, Chicago Medical School, who reported that neuroleptics

relieve psychotic anxiety but blunted fine details of personality,

including initiative, emotional reactivity, enthusiasm, sexiness,

alertness and insight. In addition to side effects which may be

permanent. Professor Jon Franklin in Brave New Science of Molecular

Psychology observed - This era coincided with an increasing awareness

that the neuroleptics not only did not cure schizophrenia - they

actually caused damage to the brain: In severe cases, brain damage

from neuroleptic drugs is evidenced by abnormal body movements called

tardive dyskinesia. However this is only the tip of the iceberg of

neuroleptic caused brain damage. Higher mental functions are more

vulnerable and are impaired before the elementary functions of the

brain such as motor control. Without doubt Stevens has captured the

essence of the tranquilizer psychosis. In a recent report Madsen and

colleagues found a significant association between the amount of

tranquilizers taken over years in grams and cerebral cortex atrophy,

(The Lancet, 352, page 784,1998).

We are preparing the ground for the next major pandemic of illness

with millions of chronic schizophrenic patients becoming more and more

brain damaged as they are forced to remain on their drugs. And when it

is fully upon us how are we going to deal with brain damaged

schizophrenic patients, taken from the mainstream of life which passed

them by. We will have a permanent core of helpless people with hardly

any hope they will ever recover. Are we looking forward to the

greatest mass action suit of all time?

 

March 7th, 2000: I received the following letter. It speaks for

itself. " My name is ....You probably receive a lot of letters like

this. I wanted to write and thank you for all your research and work

in the area of schizophrenia and niacin. Your work really changed my

life. A year and a half ago when I was 26, I began hearing voices and

experiencing paranoia and panic attacks. I quit my job because of this

and quit school where I was working on a second degree in chemistry;

because I was losing control. I ended up in the hospital where I

started treatment with risperdal. I tried to commit suicide and ended

up in the hospital again. The only way I could pay my bills was by the

generosity of people from church. For a year I tried risperdal,

zyprexa and others. The results were minimal in controlling the

symptoms. I also became like a zombie. I could barely work and had

trouble walking or doing physical exercise . I gained 50 pounds. I

couldn't support myself and relied on the Center for Human Services to

provide the $80-a-pill medication. While starting on a new medicine

seroquel, I happened to find a reference to niacin for mental illness

in a diet book. I looked up the reference and your book How To Live

With Schizophrenia. I decided to try the treatment although honestly I

didn't believe it would work because nothing else had. After taking

niacin in the doses you recommended for a month, against the advice of

my doctor, I found while the seroquel was reduced the niacin totally

eliminated the symptoms. I could listen to noise again without it

overwhelming me and quit having panic attacks. I could think clearly

and read normally. The voices are virtually gone. I went off the

medication and am doing great, as long as I take the niacin. I did

this against the advice of my doctor with his warning. Thank you for

all you have done!! I have my life back! I am finishing my degree and

thinking of going into further education. I don't understand why this

information and treatment isn't made available to others with mental

illness and it makes me very angry. Destroyed lives are being wasted.

I sent for the medical research you did for my doctor and for myself.

If there is anything I can do I would love to. Thank you. "

 

Orthomolecular treatment for the schizophrenias includes optimum doses

of vitamin C. These range anywhere from 500 milligrams three times

daily to many grams taken after each meal. Patients on this program

may be fearful of continuing with their vitamin C following a news

report linking vitamin C with clogged arteries. I have already had

many calls from my patients after this first report was redigested and

puked out on the airwaves with dire warnings of the dangers involved.

The Vitamin C Foundation contacted the investigators who read this

report at a meeting and discovered that they had measured only one

variable instead of the usual three required to shows interference in

arterial blood flow. They measured the thickness of the carotid artery

wall, but did not measure plaque formation nor for the actual rate of

flow through the vessels. The last measurement is the most important

one. However they suggested that there was in fact hardening of the

arteries and that people with heart problems should avoid taking this

vitamin. So here we have another nascent factoid. The facts are that

vitamin C decreases plaque formation according to many clinical

studies, that clinicians such as Dr Robert Cathcart have not seen any

evidence for this in over 30,000 patients. They also ignored the

knowledge that thickened arterial walls in the absence of plaque

formation indicate that the walls are becoming stronger and therefore

less apt to rupture. The original report by Dr James Dwyer, USC was

submitted for publication and was not yet reviewed by his peers.

Perhaps these peers will persuade the authors to change their

conclusion, to simply report what they found and not make these

unwarranted recommendations to the public at large. I have not seen

any evidence for the Dwyer conclusion in the past 45 years that I have

given large doses of vitamin C to perhaps 10,000 patients and at age

82, have been on large doses since 1960. My cardiovascular system

seems to be working pretty well. Scientists should avoid the hubris of

extrapolations of simple and inadequate laboratory data to the

clinical world at large.

 

The Nutritional Medicine Today, 29th Annual International Conference,

Vancouver April 6-9, 2000 was great. Audio Tapes are available from

the Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, 16 Florence Ave, Toronto, ON,

Canada,M2N 1E9 416 733 2117, Fax (416) 733 2352 E Mail

centre See also www.orthomed.org

 

Orthomolecular treatment of cancer was discussed by John Hoffer and

Hugh Riordan. Vitamin C played a major role in these discussions.

David Horrobin reported the results of a double blind controlled

study, using 2 grams daily of eicosapentaenoic acid, which showed that

it was more effective than tranquilizers and much less toxic. This

important essential fatty acid should be incorporated into the

treatment of every patient with schizophrenia. Dr. Horrobin developed

the niacin skin test for diagnosing schizophrenia. Klaus-Georg Wenzel

reported that the orthomolecular method, following Carl Pfeiffer's

classification of the schizophrenias worked well in Germany. He hopes

he can complete a double blind study that was interrupted by

government interference. David Kennedy reviewed the toxic impact of

fluoride especially in children were it caused learning disorders

while in sharp contrast to this real and dangerous use of fluoride,

Patrick Bouic showed that certain plant sterols improved the function

of the immune system. Richard Kunin spoke about ischemia induced

apoptosis (cell death) and Tory Hagen showed that dietary supplements

could reverse the mitochondrial decay of aging. Mikhael Adams combines

nutritional and homeopathic therapy with standard cancer treatment and

Isaac Lesser reviewed his new classification of mental patient types

and the brain chemistry diet. We were all pleased to hear Stephen

Lawson of the Linus Pauling Institute, located in Oregon at the

University, bring us up to date on this important institution. It is

following in the grand footsteps originated by Linus Pauling. The

Vancouver Premier of the film " Masks of Madness; Science of Healing "

featuring Miss Margot Kidder was wonderfully well received by a full

house. I followed with a discussion again pointing out that

schizophrenic patients on tranquilizer medication alone seldom pay

income tax; they do not and can not become normal.

 

Copyright C 2000 and prior years Abram Hoffer, M.D. Reprinted with

permission.