Orthomolecular psychiatry is the use of orthomolecular medicine for mental illness. Orthomolecular psychiatry has been rejected by evidence-based medicine and has been called quackery. The approach uses unorthodox forms of individualized testing and diagnosis to attempt to establish an etiology for each patient's specific symptoms, and claims to tailor the treatment accordingly, using a combination of nutrients, dietary changes and medications that are claimed to enhance quality of life and functionality as well as to reduce or eliminate symptoms and the use of xenobiotic drugs. Scientific studies have shown mixed results; although there are some promising results from nutritional psychiatry, some forms of orthomolecular psychiatry are ineffective.
Orthomolecular psychiatry began with Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond in the 1950s and was continued by Carl Pfeiffer, [1] although proponents of orthomolecular psychiatry say that the ideas behind their approach can be traced back to the 1920s and '30s. [2] [3] Orthomolecular psychiatry's goal of weaning patients from conventional neuroleptic drugs [4] follows "Pfeiffer's Law", "For every drug that benefits a patient, there is a natural substance that can achieve the same effect". [5] In 1968, Linus Pauling first used the term orthomolecular. [6] [7]
Hoffer's therapies focused on using niacin, among other nutrients, to treat what he diagnosed as acute schizophrenia based on an unaccepted test. In 1973, a task force of the American Psychiatric Association examined niacin monotherapy of patient populations with chronic schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and rejected the practice along with the reliability of Hoffer's diagnostic approach. [8]
The assertions by proponents of orthomolecular psychiatry were rejected in 1973 by a panel of the American Psychiatric Association. [8] [9] [10] However, the underpinning ideas of orthomolecular psychiatry have become popular in alternative medical circles as a means to explain conditions such as autism, heavy metal toxicity, and chronic inflammatory disease. After 1975, orthomolecular psychiatry research was primarily reported in Orthomolecular Psychiatry, now the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine , a publication founded by Hoffer to counter what he considered to be a medical conspiracy against his ideas. [11]
Proponents of orthomolecular psychiatry claim to have identified the causes of some psychiatric syndromes, in particular those that cause psychosis; according to orthomolecular proponents, testing for these causes guides diagnosis and treatment. Diagnostic measures and therapies commonly employed include "individual biochemical workup", fasting, identifying suggested allergies, dietary changes, megavitamin therapy, amino acids, and other so-called "pharmacologic nutrients". [4] These diagnoses have not been accepted by mainstream medicine. [12]
Orthomolecularists claim that the causes of psychotic disorders include food allergy, hypoglycemia, hypothyroidism in the presence of normal thyroid values, heavy metal intoxications including those allegedly due to dental fillings, as well as several hypothesised conditions they call pyroluria, histadelia and histapenia. [4]
Pyroluria (or malvaria from the term mauve factor) involves hypothetical excessive levels of pyrroles in the body resulting from improper hemoglobin synthesis. [13] Carl Pfeiffer believed that pyroluria is a form of schizophrenic porphyria, similar to acute intermittent porphyria where both pyrroles and porphyrins are excreted in the human urine to an excessive degree. [14] and orthomolecular psychiatrists have alleged that pyroluria is related to diagnoses of ADHD, alcoholism, autism, depression, down syndrome, manic-depression, schizophrenia, celiac disease, epilepsy, and psychosis. [15] Pfeiffer's methods have not been rigorously tested, [16] and pyrroles are not considered to be related to schizophrenia. Studies have either failed to detect hemopyrrole and kryptopyrrole in the urine of normal controls and schizophrenics, or found no correlation between these chemicals and mental illness. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] Few, if any, medical experts regard the condition as genuine, and few or no articles on pyroluria are found in modern medical literature; [23] the approach is described as "snake oil" by pediatrician and author Julian Haber. [16]
Histadelia is a condition hypothesised by Carl Pfeiffer [24] [25] to involve elevated serum levels of histamine and basophils, [4] which he says can be treated with methionine and vitamin B6 megadoses. [26] Pfeiffer claims that "histadelia" can cause depression with or without psychosis, but no published clinical trials have tested the effectiveness of this therapy. [27]
Histapenia in orthomolecular medicine is the condition of high serum copper with low histamine.
Orthomolecular psychiatry has been rejected by the mainstream medical community. [28] Critics have noted that the claims advanced by its proponents are unsubstantiated, and even false. Authoritative bodies such as the National Institute of Mental Health [12] and American Academy of Pediatrics [29] have criticized orthomolecular treatments as ineffective and toxic.
A 1973 task force of the American Psychiatric Association charged with investigating orthomolecular claims concluded:
This review and critique has carefully examined the literature produced by megavitamin proponents and by those who have attempted to replicate their basic and clinical work. It concludes in this regard that the credibility of the megavitamin proponents is low. Their credibility is further diminished by a consistent refusal over the past decade to perform controlled experiments and to report their new results in a scientifically acceptable fashion. Under these circumstances this Task Force considers the massive publicity which they promulgate via radio, the lay press and popular books, using catch phrases which are really misnomers like "megavitamin therapy" and "orthomolecular treatment," to be deplorable. [30]
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by reoccurring episodes of psychosis that are correlated with a general misperception of reality. Other common signs include hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, social withdrawal, and flat affect. Symptoms develop gradually and typically begin during young adulthood and are never resolved. There is no objective diagnostic test; diagnosis is based on observed behavior, a psychiatric history that includes the person's reported experiences, and reports of others familiar with the person. For a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the described symptoms need to have been present for at least six months or one month. Many people with schizophrenia have other mental disorders, especially substance use disorders, depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and obsessive–compulsive disorder.
Anti-psychiatry, sometimes spelled antipsychiatry without the hyphen, is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionable effectiveness and harm associated with psychiatric medications, the failure of psychiatry to demonstrate any disease treatment mechanism for psychiatric medication effects, and legal concerns about equal human rights and civil freedom being nullified by the presence of diagnosis. Historical critiques of psychiatry came to light after focus on the extreme harms associated with electroconvulsive therapy or insulin shock therapy. The term "anti-psychiatry" is in dispute and often used to dismiss all critics of psychiatry, many of whom agree that a specialized role of helper for people in emotional distress may at times be appropriate, and allow for individual choice around treatment decisions.
Adrenochrome is a chemical compound produced by the oxidation of adrenaline (epinephrine). It was the subject of limited research from the 1950s through to the 1970s as a potential cause of schizophrenia. While it has no current medical application, the semicarbazide derivative, carbazochrome, is a hemostatic medication.
Richard Bentall is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK.
Orthomolecular medicine is a form of alternative medicine that claims to maintain human health through nutritional supplementation. It is rejected by evidence-based medicine. The concept builds on the idea of an optimal nutritional environment in the body and suggests that diseases reflect deficiencies in this environment. Treatment for disease, according to this view, involves attempts to correct "imbalances or deficiencies based on individual biochemistry" by use of substances such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, trace elements and fatty acids. The notions behind orthomolecular medicine are not supported by sound medical evidence, and the therapy is not effective for chronic disease prevention; even the validity of calling the orthomolecular approach a form of medicine has been questioned since the 1970s.
Historically, mental disorders have had three major explanations, namely, the supernatural, biological and psychological models. For much of recorded history, deviant behavior has been considered supernatural and a reflection of the battle between good and evil. When confronted with unexplainable, irrational behavior and by suffering and upheaval, people have perceived evil. In fact, in the Persian Empire from 550 to 330 B.C., all physical and mental disorders were considered the work of the devil. Physical causes of mental disorders have been sought in history. Hippocrates was important in this tradition as he identified syphilis as a disease and was, therefore, an early proponent of the idea that psychological disorders are biologically caused. This was a precursor to modern psycho-social treatment approaches to the causation of psychopathology, with the focus on psychological, social and cultural factors. Well known philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, etc., wrote about the importance of fantasies, dreams, and thus anticipated, to some extent, the fields of psychoanalytic thought and cognitive science that were later developed. They were also some of the first to advocate for humane and responsible care for individuals with psychological disturbances.
Ladislas Joseph Meduna was a Hungarian neuropathologist and neuropsychiatrist who initiated convulsive treatment, the repeated induction of grand mal seizures, as a treatment of psychosis. Observing the high concentration of glia in post-mortem brains of patients with epilepsy and a paucity in those with schizophrenia, he proposed that schizophrenia might be treated by inducing "epileptic" seizures. Thus, chemically induced seizures became the electroconvulsive therapy that is now in worldwide use.
Abram Hoffer was a Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist known for his "adrenochrome hypothesis" of schizoaffective disorders. According to Hoffer, megavitamin therapy and other nutritional interventions are potentially effective treatments for cancer and schizophrenia. Hoffer was also involved in studies of LSD as an experimental therapy for alcoholism and the discovery that high-dose niacin can be used to treat high cholesterol and other dyslipidemias. Hoffer's ideas about megavitamin therapy to treat mental illness are not accepted by the medical community.
Thought broadcasting is a type of delusional condition in which the affected person believes that others can hear their inner thoughts, despite a clear lack of evidence. The person may believe that either those nearby can perceive their thoughts or that they are being transmitted via mediums such as television, radio or the internet. Different people can experience thought broadcasting in different ways. Thought broadcasting is most commonly found among people who have a psychotic disorder, specifically schizophrenia.
Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks. It was introduced in 1927 by Austrian-American psychiatrist Manfred Sakel and used extensively in the 1940s and 1950s, mainly for schizophrenia, before falling out of favour and being replaced by neuroleptic drugs in the 1960s.
Megavitamin therapy is the use of large doses of vitamins, often many times greater than the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) in the attempt to prevent or treat diseases. Megavitamin therapy is typically used in alternative medicine by practitioners who call their approach orthomolecular medicine. Vitamins are useful in preventing and treating illnesses specifically associated with dietary vitamin shortfalls, but the conclusions of medical research are that the broad claims of disease treatment by advocates of megavitamin therapy are unsubstantiated by the available evidence. It is generally accepted that doses of any vitamin greatly in excess of nutritional requirements will result either in toxicity or in the excess simply being metabolised; thus evidence in favour of vitamin supplementation supports only doses in the normal range. Critics have described some aspects of orthomolecular medicine as food faddism or even quackery. Research on nutrient supplementation in general suggests that some nutritional supplements might be beneficial, and that others might be harmful; several specific nutritional therapies are associated with an increased likelihood of the condition they are meant to prevent.
Irwin Stone (1907–1984) was an American biochemist, chemical engineer, and writer. He was the first to use ascorbic acid in the food processing industry as a preservative, and originated and published the hypothesis that humans require much larger amounts of Vitamin C for optimal health than is necessary to prevent scurvy.
The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine was established in 1967 by Abram Hoffer. It publishes studies in nutritional and orthomolecular medicine. There is controversy surrounding the journal, as the validity of the field of orthomolecular medicine is not widely accepted by mainstream medicine. The journal is ranked in the bottom 10 percent of all journals about complementary and alternative medicine that are indexed in the bibliographic database Scopus.
Primary polydipsia and psychogenic polydipsia are forms of polydipsia characterised by excessive fluid intake in the absence of physiological stimuli to drink. Psychogenic polydipsia which is caused by psychiatric disorders, often schizophrenia, is often accompanied by the sensation of dry mouth. Some forms of polydipsia are explicitly non-psychogenic. Primary polydipsia is a diagnosis of exclusion.
The Soteria model is a milieu-therapeutic approach developed to treat acute schizophrenia, usually implemented in Soteria houses.
Carl Curt Pfeiffer was a physician and biochemist who researched schizophrenia, allergies and other diseases. He was Chair of the Pharmacology Department at Emory University and considered himself a founder of what two-time Nobel prize winner, [Pauling, PhD.], named orthomolecular psychiatry and published in the Journal Science. 1968 Apr 19;160(3825):265-71.
The management of schizophrenia usually involves many aspects including psychological, pharmacological, social, educational, and employment-related interventions directed to recovery, and reducing the impact of schizophrenia on quality of life, social functioning, and longevity.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, perceptions, and emotions.
The relationship between religion and schizophrenia is of particular interest to psychiatrists because of the similarities between religious experiences and psychotic episodes. Religious experiences often involve reports of auditory and/or visual phenomena, which sounds seemingly similar to those with schizophrenia who also commonly report hallucinations and delusions. These symptoms may resemble the events found within a religious experience. However, the people who report these religious visual and audio hallucinations also claim to have not perceived them with their five senses, rather, they conclude these hallucinations were an entirely internal process. This differs from schizophrenia, where the person is unaware that their own thoughts or inner feelings are not happening outside of them. They report hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling, or tasting something that deludes them to believe it is real. They are unable to distinguish between reality and hallucinations because they experience these hallucinations with their bodily senses that leads them to perceive these events as happening outside of their mind. In general, religion has been found to have "both a protective and a risk increasing effect" for schizophrenia.
The outcomes paradox is the observation that patients with schizophrenia in developing countries benefit much more from therapy than those in developed countries. This is surprising because the reverse holds for most diseases: "the richer and more developed the country, the better the patient outcome." The outcomes paradox came to light in the 1960s due to cross-cultural studies conducted by the World Health Organization on the outcome of severe mental disorders like schizophrenia. This paradox has become an axiom in international psychiatry since.
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