The Biochemical Explanation for Schizophrenia, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder: Diabetes of the Brain

Introduction
I have reviewed a lot of old research in previous articles, but I am also interested in new discoveries that are being made now. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been suspected in schizophrenia (1).

"A growing body of evidence suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction is important in patients with psychiatric disorders. The evidence include impaired energy metabolism in the brain detected using results of magnetic resonance spectroscopy, electron microscopy, co-morbidity with mitochondrial diseases, the effects of psychotropics on mitochondria, increased mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletion in the brain, and association with mtDNA mutations/polymorphisms or nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes. It is possible that the new information will lead to a focus on psychiatric disorder as a metabolic disease."

Jou SH, Chiu NY, Liu CS.

Department of Psychiatry, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan.

The quote is from Ref. 1, which is available free full text at the journal website. Fortunately for me it was in English. The Taiwan group also suspected the mitochondria in bipolar disorder and in depression.

Abnormal Energy Metabolism

Ref. 3 reports slow glucose metabolism in the brain in schizophrenia. This article is available free full text at Pubmed Central, which is a US government database that is free. It is run by the National Library of Medicine. Unfortunately these government databases blackball the JOM (Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine), which has a lot of new ideas. I have run many searches on Pubmed and Pubmed Central, and I have never found any JOM articles there.

The techniques used in Ref. 3 can also be used to study other diseases such as hypertension and dementia (4, 6).

Amino Acids

Amino acids have also been suspected in schizophrenia (5, 7). Both theories may be correct. The error(s) in amino acid metabolism may be causing the problems in the mitochondria.

Drug Artifacts

Unfortunately the possibility of drug artifacts is very real (8). Atypical "antipsychotics" cause problems in glucose metabolism. Therefore basic research studies should be done drug-free (9).

Treatments

Treatments are discussed in Refs. 10-13. My recommendations are orthomolecular treatments because they are cheaper, safer, and more logical than drugs. It is my view that a diet should be tried. This diet would be very low in amino acids.

There has been a major scandal against Harvard Medical School psychiatrists including Dr. Biederman. It seems that Johnson & Johnson paid him a million dollars to say that Risperdal was better than the competition for children. Sure enough, Biederman published a report saying that Risperdal was better than another atypical "antipsychotic" for children (14). The drug is also called Risperidone. It is very unfortunately that academic medicine seems to be for sale.

Conclusions

There is very strong evidence for mitochodrial dysfunction in the various forms of mental disease including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. But what causes this mitochondrial dysfunction? My theory is that amino acids are flooding the brain cells, possibly as an emergency response. The brain may think that it has a deficiency of niacin, which can be made from tryptophan. The emergency response causes tryptophan to flood the cells. This could cause the mitochondria to burn amino acids for fuel instead of glucose.

This theory is so good that I will probably write a series of articles providing evidence for it. It points towards a treatment, which would be an orthomolecular diet to deal with the tryptophan allergy. The diet would be low in tryptophan.

References

1. Mitochondrial dysfunction and psychiatric disorders.

Jou SH, Chiu NY, Liu CS.

Chang Gung Med J. 2009 Jul-Aug;32(4):370-9.

2. Sarandol A, Sarandol E, Eker SS, Vatansever E, Kirli S.

Major depressive disorder is accompanied with oxidative stress: short-term antidepressant treatment does not alter oxidative-antioxidative system. Hum Psychopharmacol 2007;22:67-73.

3. Metabolic Profiling of CSF: Evidence That Early Intervention May Impact on Disease Progression and Outcome in Schizophrenia

Elaine Holmes, Tsz M Tsang, Jeffrey T.-J Huang, F. Markus Leweke, Dagmar Koethe, Christoph W Gerth, Brit M Nolden, Sonja Gross, Daniela Schreiber, Jeremy K Nicholson, and Sabine BahnPLoS Med. 2006 August; 3(8): e327. Published online 2006 August 22.

4. Brindle JT, Nicholson JK, Schofield PM, Grainger DJ, Holmes E. Application of chemometrics to ¹H NMR spectroscopic data to investigate a relationship between human serum metabolic profiles and hypertension. Analyst. 2003;128:32-36.

5. Hashimoto K, Engberg G, Shimizu E, Nordin C, Lindstrom L, et al. Elevated glutamine/glutamate ratio in cerebrospinal fluid of first episode and drug naive schizophrenic patients. BMC Psychiatry. 2005;5:1-6.

6. White LR, Garseth M, Aasly J, Sonnewald U. Cerebrospinal fluid from patients with dementia contains increased amounts of an unknown factor. J Neurosci Res. 2004;78:297-301.

7. Do KQ, Trabesinger AH, Kirsten-Kruger M, Lauer CJ, Dydak U, et al. Schizophrenia: Glutathione deficit in cerebrospinal fluid and prefrontal cortex in vivo. Eur J Neurosci. 2000;12:3721-3728.

8. Newcomer JW. Abnormalities of glucose metabolism associated with atypical antipsychotic drugs. J Clin Psychiatry. 2004;65((Suppl 18)):36-46.

9. Ryan MC, Collins P, Thakore JH. Impaired fasting glucose tolerance in first-episode, drug-naive patients with schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry. 2003;160:284-289.

10. www.CraigOlson.bizhosting.com.

11. www.associatedcontent.com/article/2092969/the_biochemical_approach_to_mental.html
12. www.associatedcontent.com/article/2085461/scientific_approaches_to_mental_health.html

13. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1292397/in_defense_of_the_medical_model_for.html

14. Lenzer, Jeanne. "Review is set up after doctors fail to disclose industry funding.(Charles Grassley). ." British Medical Journal. 336.7657 (June 14, 2008): 1327(1). Health Reference Center Academic. Gale. Newton Free Library.