Animal Rights Issues in Medical Research

There has been a lot of medical research in which animals have been tortured and killed. Some of this research has little value, if any. How do you know if a mouse is schizophrenic? How do you know if a monkey has depression? How do you know if a rat has Alzheimer's disease? Some of these animal models of human diseases are questionable.

Orthomolecular Research

Orthomolecular research is done differently. Doctors try to find out what chemical errors the patient has. Then they try to correct these errors using nutrition. This research is not done on monkeys, apes, mice, etc. It is not funded by the US government, although the Canadian government funded much of Hoffer's research. The Linus Pauling Institute in Oregon does micronutrient research.

Ref. 1 provides more information about orthomolecular research. Ref. 2 is a website devoted to this type of research.

"Since we're all concerned with the cost of medical care, I am amazed so little is known by the public and the medical profession about the effectiveness of orthomolecular approaches to health and longevity, the reversal of disease processes and the prevention of degenerative disease." Hugh D, Riordan, M.D.

Human Rights

Diabetes is a terrible side effect of atypical "antipsychotics" as well as weight gain, worsened lipid profile, etc. Patients given these drugs should be told in advance about these side effects. However, they aren't.

Research Using Animals

In the past researchers have used cats, dogs, monkeys, rats, mice, guinea pigs, etc. Because of animal rights activists the amount of research on cats and dogs has diminished. One animal rights group, Compassion Over Killing, concentrates on fighting abuses in animal agriculture. They appear to feel that there are tradeoffs in medical research. My views are similar to those of this outstanding group of activists. However, I feel that there is little value in some medical research involving animals. How do you know that a mouse is depressed? How do you know that a mouse is schizophrenic? How do you know if a monkey is schizophrenic? Yet these models have been used.

If you found a mouse with cancer and tried to cure it, that would be a type of research I would support. However, this is not what is done in reality. In reality mice are exposed to carcinogens.

A Mouse Model of Depression

Ref. 3 reports a mouse model of depression.

"We report that peripheral administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activates IDO and culminates in a distinct depressive-like behavioral syndrome, measured by increased duration of immobility in both the forced swim and tail suspension tests." J.C. O'Connor et al (3)

I question the accuracy of this model.

"These results implicate IDO as a critical molecular mediator of inflammation-induced depressive-like behavior, probably through the catabolism of tryptophan along the kynurenine pathway." J.C. O'Connor et al (3)

"Administration of L-kynurenine, a metabolite of tryptophan that is generated by IDO, to naïve mice dose-dependently induces depressive-like behavior." J.C. O'Connor et al (3)

But why haven't these scientists administered kynurenine to normal humans? Then one could tell better if depressive symptoms were induced by kynurenine. McLean Hospital pays people $500 to smoke marijuana in a research study. If people can be paid to smoke marijuana, why can't they be paid to take kynurenine?

There are other ways of doing research on depression (4). One can study physical diseases like Cushing's syndrome that present with symptoms of depression. There is a cytokine theory of depression (5).

Of Rats and Men

Ref. 6 is a study on rats in which a rat model of depression is used.

"Several indices of male sexual behavior were significantly suppressed following LPS administration." Yirmiya R. (6)

This study was similar to the Ref. 3 study on mice. Lipopolysaccharide was also used. This "endotoxin" supposedly caused the rats to be depressed. It would seem to me that the logical approach to depression research would be to measure the tryptophan metabolism in humans. How do you know that a rat is depressed? The rat could just be poisoned.

Conclusions

It can be concluded that it appears that the orthomolecular approach to disease is the best. Orthomolecular scientists measure the chemicals in the metabolome. They find out which chemicals are abnormal. Then they try to correct the chemical imbalances by nutritiion. Using animal models of mental diseases is very speculative. The animal research might be right, and it might be wrong.

References

1. Rees EL: Aluminum toxicity as indicated by hair analysis. J. Orthomol. Psychiatry 8:37, 1979.

2.http://www.orthomolecular.org

3. Lipopolysaccharide-induced depressive-like behavior is mediated by indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase activation in mice. J.C. O'Connor, M.A. Lawson, C. André, M. Moreau, J. Lestage, N. Castanon, K.W. Kelley, and R. Dantzer. Mol Psychiatry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 November 1.PMCID: PMC2683474 Published in final edited form as: Mol Psychiatry. 2009 May; 14(5): 511-522. Published online 2008 January 15. doi: 10.1038/sj.mp.4002148.

4. Evans DL, Charney DS, Lewis L, Golden RN, Gorman JM, Krishnan KR, et al. Mood disorders in the medically ill: scientific review and recommendations. Biol Psychiatry. 2005;58(3):175-89.

5. Capuron L, Dantzer R. Cytokines and depression: the need for a new paradigm. Brain Behav Immun. 2003;17(Suppl 1):S119-24.

6. Yirmiya R. Endotoxin produces a depressive-like episode in rats. Brain Res. 1996;711(1-2):163-74.