Advances in Mental Health Research

Introduction

Stress has been repeatedly implicated in schizophrenia and other mental disorders (1). Another interesting fact is that swelling of the mitochondria has been seen in patients with destruction of cristae (6).

There are also genetic theories (7, 8).

Tryptophan

Tryptophan has been tried as a treatment, but there have been serious problems. One of the side effects is the "serotonin syndrome", which is also seen with SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). Confusion, hallucinations, sweating, heartburn, drowsiness, headaches, etc. can be seen. Tryptophan can interact with psychiatric medicines.

At one time tryptophan was available as a nonprescription item. However, there were so many problems that it was taken off of the market. My own theory is that tryptophan is adverse to mental illness. My theory is presented in my free full text articles at Associated Content (9-12). In other words, mental illness is a brain allergy to tryptophan. Tryptophan should be avoided in the diet. Other amino acids may be involved as well.

There is a website called NutritionData.com that has the tryptophan content of foods. This website is very useful. Tryptophan tends to be high in foods that are high in protein including soybeans, spinach, crimini mushrooms, meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, etc. Another good website on this matter is WorldsHealthiestFoods.org.

Plant sources of tryptophan include lentils, seeds, hummus, baked potatoes with their skin, etc.

Since other amino acids may also be involved, a low protein diet is suggested. Nuts are high in trytophan and also high in protein. They are also high in fat as a rule.

Protein

In general foods high in tryptophan are foods high in protein. An exception to this is gelatin, which is high in protein but has no tryptophan. It is an incomplete protein.

Orthomolecular Treatments

Various vitamins have been used as orthomolecular treatments including flavonoids and other polyphenols. Orthomolecular people have called flavonids "vitamin P", but there are many flavonids. These flavonids have good side effects including cancer prevention, natural anit-viral properties, building a protective barrier against infections, helping vitamin C, etc. For more information consult orthomolecular.org, which is an outstanding website.

Flavonoids are in the following foods:

Apricots, bark, black currants, blue and red berries, buckwheat, cherries, elderberry, fruits, grapes, grapefruit, garlic, green tea, green vegetables, hawthorne berry, horsetail, lemons, nuts, oil, oranges, onions, peppers, prunes, rose hips, soy beans, the peels of citrus fruits, and shepherd's purse.

More information on flavonoids is at the World's Healthiest Foods website, which is another outstanding website. It is one of my favorites.

Drugs

Unfortunately Clozapine kills a type of important white blood cell called the granulocyte. This can result in a very serious disease called agranulocytosis, which can result in death. See Ref. 6.

Conclusions

Orthomolecular therapy uses natural substances and diets to treat diseases. Unfortunately drugs have been designed by trial & error, whith too many errors. The orthomolecular approach is to find out what is wrong on a biochemical basis and try to fix it. This is a rational approach. If too much tryptophan is flooding the brain cells, then it would make sense to reduce the tryptophan in the diet.

But what is causing too much tryptophan to flood the brain cells? This appears to be caused by a toxin called DMPEA. This toxin is made from dopamine using the enzyme COMT. This enzyme is inhibited by polyphenols, including flavonoids. For further information see the references.

References

1. Walker EF, Diforio D. Schizophrenia: a neural diathesis-stress model. Psychol Rev. 1997;104:667-685.

2. Corcoran C, Walker E, Huot R, et al. The stress cascade and schizophrenia: etiology and onset. Schizophr Bull. 2003;29:671-692.

3. Lawrie SM, Johnstone EC, Weinberger DR. Schizophrenia: From Neuroimaging to Neuroscience. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 2004.

4. Harrison PJ. The neuropathology of schizophrenia: a critical review of data and their interpretation. Brain. 1999;122:593-624.

5. Job D, Whalley HC, Johnstone EC, Lawrie SM. Grey matter changes over time in high risk subjects developing schizophrenia. Neuroimage. 2005;25:1023-1030.

6. White blood cell ultrastructure before and during antipsychotic therapy in schizophrenia. I M Inuwa, Z Zaidan, and N Viernes. J Anat. 2004 March; 204(3): 227. doi: 10.1111/j.0021-8782.2004.00276.x. PMCID: PMC1571276.

7. Glatt, S. J., Faraone, S. V., Tsuang & M. T. (2003) Am. J. Psychiatry 160:, 469-476.

8. A 200-kb region of human chromosome 22q11.2 confers antipsychotic-responsive behavioral abnormalities in mice Noboru Hiroi, Hongwen Zhu, MoonSook Lee, Birgit Funke, Makoto Arai, Masanari Itokawa, Raju Kucherlapati, Bernice Morrow, Takehito Sawamura, and Soh AgatsumaProc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 December 27; 102(52): 19132-19137. Published online 2005 December 19. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0509635102. PMCID: PMC1323212

9. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1641378/diet_and_schizophrenia.html
10. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1636511/basic_and_applied_research_on_mental.html

11. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1638950/biomarkers_for_schizophrenia.html

12. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1627404/treatments_for_mental_diseases.html