Brilliant Discoveries in Neuropsychiatry

I have reviewed a lot of work in previous articles (1, 2). I will try to cover new material here. Ref. 14 claimed abnormal tryptophan metabolism in "antisocial violent offenders". However, there is also data implicating wheat gluten (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). These findings might be related since tryptophan can produce other amino acids. Wheat gluten contains glutamine, which is an amino acid.

There are also theories involving methionine (17, 18).

The Fish Oil Theory

The fish oil theory is discussed in Refs. 19 & 20. I am very skeptical of this theory. My experience is that the treatment does not work.

Depression as a Drug Side Effect

Unfortunately depression can occur as a drug side effect (21). However, we may be able to learn clues from this. The drug interferon induces an error in tryptophan metabolism causing it to be excessive. This causes depression. Interferon is a drug used for serious physical illnesses.

Acute Intermittent Porphyria (AIP)

This genetic disease can have psychiatric symptoms including hallucinations, confusion, seizures, and mood changes. There is a deficiency of heme, which is required by an enzyme that metabolizes tryptophan in the kynurenine pathway. This causes an excess of tryptophan and an excess of serotonin. This is very interesting in view of the fact that the drug companies blame depression on a supposed lack of serotonin. Prozac and other SSRI drugs increase serotonin.

Heme contains iron. It also contains porphyrin, a large molecule. Information on porphyria is in the Gale Encyclopedia of Genetic Disorders, which is a new two volume set of books. Porphyria and PKU are both in Volume 2.

Hoffer Deceased

Unfortunately the Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Abram Hoffer has died. Hoffer lived into his nineties. He favored orthomolecular medicine. He invented megavitamin treatment in the Fifties, which was a very controversial treatment. It had the beneficial side effect of lowering your cholesterol.

"Orthomolecular therapy consists in the prevention and treatment of disease by varying the concentrations in the human body of substances that are normally present."

- Linus Pauling, 1968

"Under my direction, we did the first double blinds in psychiatry and I felt perfectly justified in also being one of the first to criticize this method." Hoffer

"We deduced from our biochemical theories that large doses of vitamin B-3 and vitamin C might be therapeutic. We obtained a large supply of pure crystalline niacin, niacinamide, ascorbic acid and riboflavin. Our first patient Ken was a catatonic schizophrenic in the mental hospital run by Dr Osmond. He had had insulin coma and also ECT and had been left in a coma and was dying. We decided that he must be our first patient to be given niacin and hoped he would not be our first victim. We used a stomach tube and gave him a large dose of niacin and ascorbic acid. He survived. The next day he sat up and drank it and thirty days later he was well. He was discharged and remained well." Hoffer

Stone

Irwin Stone was a pioneer in the study of vitamin C.

"In the 1950s it became clear to Stone that humans would benefit from ingesting much larger amounts of ascorbates than the medical and nutritional establishments considered adequate. After he retired from his paid employment and moved to San Jose in 1971, he devoted the rest of his life to studying and publicizing the need for multi-gram daily consumption of vitamin C by humans. His 1972 book The Healing Factor is considered a classic.

In April 1966 Irwin Stone met Linus Pauling, who found him to be extraordinarily well-informed and convincing. Pauling credits this meeting with Stone as the starting point of his own interest in vitamin C."

Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.

Conclusions

The genetic disorder PKU is treated by a low protein diet. This diet must be followed from birth. Tyrosine supplements are sometimes given because usually the patient is deficient in tyrosine. The brain is poisoned by excessive phenylalanine, so neurologists are interested in this disease as well as pediatricians and nutritionists. Psychiatrists should also be interested because psychiatric symptoms are seen. This disease was cited by Linus Pauling in his 1968 paper in the journal Science on orthomolecular psychiatry. After I read Pauling's paper I took an interest in PKU. Pauling felt that PKU was evidence in favor of his theories.

My own theory involves tryptophan, which I feel is flooding the brain in mental disorders due to a transport error. My theory is that a diet very low in tryptophan should be tried. This would be a low protein diet similar to the PKU diet.

References

1. www.associatedcontent.com/article/2129285/mitochondrial_dysfunction_causes_mental.html
2. www.associatedcontent.com/article/2085461/scientific_approaches_to_mental_health.html

3. Alterations in tryptophan and purine metabolism in cocaine addiction: a metabolomic study. Patkar AA, Rozen S, Mannelli P, Matson W, Pae CU, Krishnan KR, Kaddurah-Daouk R. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2009 Aug 1. [Epub ahead of print]

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21. The role of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) in the pathophysiology of interferon-α-induced depression. Marieke C. Wichers and Michael Maes. J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2004 January; 29(1): 11-17.

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