Hypoglycemia and Mental Illness

"Proper nutrition is essential to prevent deficiencies and toxicosis. Exogenous toxins are particularly likely to accumulate in the hypothalamus and in some cases may be the primary cause of symptoms. Dietary changes are known to alleviate symptoms of nervous and mental disease (6, 40, 41), and it is well known that when the nutrition of prisoners is improved the likelihood of violence is diminished. This is because avoiding stimulant foods decreases the severity of detoxification crises."

Van Winkle (2000)

Millhauser Laboratories of the Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine.

Introduction

Adelle Davis, in the book "Let's Get Well", was one of the first to point out similarities in the symptoms between hypoglycemia and mental illness. She was also one of the first to suggest a diet for mental disease. Soon a lot of scientists picked up on this including Wendel & Beebe, Carlton Fredericks, Abramson & Pezet, and others.

I see it as a significant clue to the etiology of mental disease. Some have called Davis a "quack", but I disagree. She was also one of the first few who advocated the use of nutrition to fight cancer. This went against a lot of prejudices. Amazingly they use radiation as a cancer treatment even though radiation is carcinogenic.

Hypoglycemia

The brain depends very heavily on glucose burning to provide its energy. It cannot burn fat. It can burn amino acids in an emergency such as starvation. However, it does not produce ATP as well from amino acids. The ATP stores the energy that the brain needs.

In pellagra, which is caused by niacin deficiency, there are mental symptoms as well as physical ones. In pernicious anemia, caused by a shortage of vitamin B12, there are mental symptoms. It seems that almost any problem in brain energy metabolism causes mental symptoms. A rare exception is diabetes mellitus where the blood glucose is too high. However, if the diabetic takes too much insulin mental symptoms will appear due to the resulting hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).

Hypoglycemia is discussed in the book "Food for Health" by Dr. John Briffa (1998). Briffa lists the symptoms as "tiredness", fatigue, weakness, irritability, problems with concentration, low mood, depression, and food cravings. The person craves sweets. These are brain symptoms. The brain is the organ most affected. Some feel that the brain is not just one organ, but a bunch of organs. I am sympathetic to that point of view.

Low glycemic index foods are recommended. Included here are apples, barley, garbanzo beans, lentils, peaches, pears, whole-grain rye bread, and yogurt.

Very Low Glycemic Index Foods (Under 30)

These include butter, cheese, eggs, fish, fructose, grapefruit, green vegetables, meat, peanuts, plums, seafood, and soybeans.

Strangely both low blood sugar and diabetes (high blood sugar) have similar diets. However, Pritikin favored a low fat diet for diabetes. The reason is that diabetics burn fat instead of glucose in their bodies.

Briffa said to eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, legumes, meat, and fish. Avoid foods high in refined carbohydrates and sugar. This includes rice cakes, puffed rice, white bread, cornflakes, etc. Healthy snacks include fruits.

Mental Disease

"The etiology of nervous and mental disease
Toxicosis is widespread in neurons, and the concept that symptoms of nervous and mental disease represent the body's action to eliminate toxins is not new (4, 6). Genetic predisposition may influence which tissues are susceptible to disease, or there may be a specific defect, but the development of symptoms of most nervous and mental disorders depends on environmental factors." Elnora van Winkle

Man was produced by evolution, although L. Ron Hubbard had a different point of view. Hubbard though that aliens from outer space came to earth many years ago. Man supposedly came from them. At any rate, I reject Hubbard's theory. Man evolved to survive on the stone age diet. This diet was much different than the diet we eat now. The stone age people did not drink beer, wine, or any alcoholic beverages as far as we know. These beverages came in the past few thousand years.

Stone age man did not have potatoe chips or French fries. They probably ate fruits, raw vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. They did not have the golden arches. They did not have cheeseburgers. They did not have pig farms or Colonel Sanders. They were hunters and gatherers. They couldn't preserve meat.

Today we have chicken farms that produce a lot of eggs.

But what does this have to do with mental disease? The stone age man would not survive well with mental disease. My theory is that there were protective factors in the stone age diet that may have helped prevent some chronic diseases. Fiber may have been such a factor. Bioflavonoids may have been other factors.

For many years man was plagued by pellagra. This is caused by a deficiency of niacin. The body can make niacin from tryptophan. Mother Nature may have created a protective emergency factor, which I call "substance X", to fight pellagra. Substance X may have been made by the brain if the brain sensed that ATP was too low. But brain ATP is low in mental disease. Thus we have the possiblity of a viscious circle. If the brain is flooded with tryptophan, the brain is likely to burn tryptophan for fuel instead of glucose.

DMPEA

DMPEA, also sometimes called "the pink spot", is found only in schizophrenics and in the peyote cactus. It is a chemical relative of mescaline. DMPEA gets two methyl groups from methionine, which is an amino acid in the diet. Mescaline has three such groups. Heavily methylated substances tend to be hallucinogenic if they are amines. This may be due to the fact that methyl groups (and methoxy groups) make the substance more fat soluble so it is easier to enter the cell membrane. DMPEA is toxic to neurons according to a Japanese group.

Conclusions

A lot of research has been done, but much more needs to be done. DMPEA may not be the only toxin involved in mental illness. See the bibliography for more information. The late Elnora van Winkle referred to "the toxic mind". She felt that the toxin DMPEA caused this. Dr. Arnold J. Friedhoff also had this view although I feel that he did not pursue it enough. He seemed to give up on it.

"Unequivocal evidence for toxicosis in mental illness is found in the pathology of the human brain." Van Winkle

"When the MAO inhibitor iproniazid, which is similar to drugs still used in the treatment of depression, was administered to rats, there was an increased excretion of methylated metabolites (25). The use of iproniazid has been linked to relapses in schizophrenia, which is further evidence that toxicosis results in symptoms, in this case intensified by the administration of a drug." Van Winkle

Bibliography

1. Friedhoff AJ, Van Winkle E. Isolation and characterization of a compound from the urine of schizophrenics. Nature 1962; 194: 897-898.
2. Friedhoff AJ, Silva R. Catecholamines and behavior. In: Ramachandran, V. S., ed. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, vol. 1. San Diego: Academic Press, 1994.
3. Schweitzer JW, Friedhoff AJ. The metabolism of alpha-14C-3,4-dimethoxyphenethylamine. Biochem Pharmac 1966; 15: 2097-2103.

4. Van Winkle, E. The toxic mind: the biology of mental illness and violence, Med Hypotheses 2000; 55(4): 356-368.