Advocacy for the Homeless and the Mentally Ill

"The number of homeless chronic schizophrenics in the streets of all large American and Canadian cities is evidence of their inability to do more them than we could do in 1950 before we had any tranquilizers. But at least then we had hospitals which provided shelter and food and some care. Today the downtown slums have become the surrogate mental hospital beds for the chronic patients whose treatment has been wholly tranquilizers." Hoffer

Introduction

For the homeless and the mentally ill, it is often important to eat cheaply.

"When I say, 'eat well', I mean 'eat healthfully,' not 'eat elaborately'. Eating healthfully means a complete but meatless diet of inexpensive, whole foods. It also means a good tasting, simple diet that you can live with - and will live better with - every day. You will not get fat on these foods, and will easily maintain or reduce to your optimum weight." Dr. Andrew Saul

The Vegetarian Diet

"Healthful diet equals vegetarian diet. Vegetarian diet equals inexpensive diet. Believe me, it's considerably cheaper to not have to buy meat at today's prices." Saul

Orthomolecular Treatments

Information about orthomolecular treatments is given in Ref. 1. If you are in Canada, you may be interested in the following resource:

ORTHOMOLECULAR VITAMIN INFORMATION CENTRE Inc.
Suite 3A - 2727 Quadra Street, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V8T 4E5
Telephone 250-386-8756 Fax 250-590-8757

Ref. 2 is about orthomolecular psychiatry.

Alcohol Abuse

Ref. 3 is about alcohol abuse. This report supports orthomolecular treatment. Hoffer favored the use of vitamins for alcoholism as did the late Roger Williams of Texas. My view is that both were right. Alcoholics have a terrible diet which is mostly carbohydrates. This puts them at risk for malnutrition. It is my view that both mental patients and alcoholics should be given vitamins. Homeless people also should be given vitamins. I have observed many homeless people. Some of them talk to themselves. They are not well.

Useful Website

There are a number of useful websites, but I will not list them all here. One example, dealing with treatments, is Ref. 4. I have listed this website because the treatments are cheap and safe. Many drugs can be dangerous, unfortunately.

Research

A tremendous amount of research has been done. One example is Ref. 5. The workers are from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Kraepelinstr. 2, 80804 Munich, Germany and the Laboratório de Neurociências (LIM-27), Inst. Psiquiatria, Fac. de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, Rua. Dr. Ovidio Pires de Campos, 785, 05403-010, SP, Brazil. They found protein abnormalities in schizophrenia. The abnormalities suggested abnormal energy metabolism in the brain.

Conclusions

There are Yahoo groups for the mentally ill. An outstanding one is the Ruby Rogers group. Another is the Mass. Psych. Survivors group. I have posted a massive amount of advocacy material and medical information to both of these groups. I have posted drug side effects information to these groups as well as to the websites gather.com and associatedcontent.com. Simply go to these websites and search for Craig Olson.

Yahoo Health is also very useful You can look up the side effects of prescription drugs there. Simply type in the name of the drug and search for it.

The best treatment is not always the most expensive one. The most expensive treatments, including ECT, are also the most dangerous. Orthomolecular treatments are cheaper and safer. Psychosocial rehabilitation is safe. Psychotherapy is safe. Unfortunately the drugs have bad side effects. There are elements of risk with presription drugs.

References

1. Hoffer A: Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia: Discovery, Recovery, Controversy. Quarry Press, Kingston, Ont., 2000.

2. Psychiatry Yesterday (1950) and Today (2007). From Despair to Hope with Orthomolecular Psychiatry by A. Hoffer.

3. Herrera D. Vitamin B-3 Variant Reversed Effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Mice. Weill Cornell Study Finds. Plos Medicine Feb 21, 2006.
4. http://www.orthomed.org.

5. Proteome analysis of the thalamus and cerebrospinal fluid reveals glycolysis dysfunction and potential biomarkers candidates for schizophrenia. Martins-de-Souza D, Maccarrone G, Wobrock T, Zerr I, Gormanns P, Reckow S, Falkai P, Schmitt A, Turck CW. J Psychiatr Res. 2010 May 14.