Coconut oil

I'm passing on some news about the purported benefits of coconut oil when treating alzheimers, dementia, epilepsy, Parkinsons and schizophrenia.

The video clip states that coconut oil raises the overall cholesterol score, but actually that is because it raises good cholesterol. This is also what niacin (Vitamin B3) does. I had my yearly medical check-up recently and the doctor reported, once again, that my overall cholesterol reading was really high. "But, don't worry," she reassured me. "That's because your good cholesterol is extremely high and it has raised the total score." Dr. Abram Hoffer recommended niacin to his schizophrenia patients and he also said that the vitamin was good in preventing dementia/alzheimers.

Here's the consumer's view of coconut oil. Gianna Kali at Beyond Meds has allowed me to reprint her comment in the main body of this post. I like her idea of using coconut butter as a substitute for peanut butter.

Coconut in general and coconut oil are both foods of the gods...especially if you're eating a grain free diet like I am...it's a great substitute.

I eat coconut flour for baked goods and coconut butter to replace peanut butter and cheese...and yes...it helps as a substitute...totally...I miss cheese and it sort of is like a spread that works...I also make homemade coconut milk since I no longer drink cow's milk and then the coconut oil I use in all sorts of cooking and baking too.

It's a wonderful food all around the coconut...it's high in protein and fiber and the fat is good for your brain and body in general.

I eat tons of saturated fat...both animal and plant (coconut oil is a saturated fat...my cholesterol went DOWN when I stopped eating grains and increased healthy fats...people don't know that grains and carbs is what make cholesterol go up in a lot of people....not fats!! and the grains and carbs will mess with people with blood sugar problems too.

Animal fat needs to be grass fed to be really healthy...in any case both my cholesterol and glucose levels have returned to healthy levels since eating this way.

"Doc Martin" calls vitamins "placebos"

Following my post yesterday about the British television show "Doc Martin" and the use of placebos, I deliberately avoided revealing what the placebos actually were in order not to distract from the main points I wanted to raise. The "placebos" that Doc Martin and his predecessor gave the patient were vitamins.

Now, if you, like me, are a fan of another doc, "Doc" Abram Hoffer, you may object to calling vitamins, "placebos." Niacin in very high doses in combination with an equal amount of vitamin C and other B-vitamins, is very effective in reducing psychotic symptoms, anxiety, and increasings one's focus. Ever since I learned about niacin and started giving it to Chris to help his psychosis, I also put myself on three grams per day of niacin,vitamin C, and I added a B-complex and zinc. I got amazing results in just three days. My ability to focus increased about five-fold, my hair got thicker and my skin got smoother. I was less anxious.

People are unique in their nutritional needs. People under stress need much larger amounts of certain B vitamins than they get from eating an otherwise healthy, well-balanced diet. Smoking depletes vitamin C, alcohol depletes the B vitamins, and so on. Don't assume that vitamins are worthless just because someone calls it the placebo effect.

B vitamins for brains

Here is yet another B vitamin study raising tantalizing links between ingestion of high doses of B vitamins and staving off dementia. Dr. Celeste de Jager of Oxford University, who led the trial, said, "A lot of the time brain changes start in your forties and fifties before you get clinical symptoms. I would think that in middle age people should start thinking about their vitamin levels."

A full scale national (U.K.) trial to establish whether the breakthrough can actually delay the slide into Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia is expected to begin within the next year.

Let's not forget that Dr. Abram Hoffer also endorsed high doses of B vitamins, especially Vitamin B3 (niacin) for not only schizophrenia but also for preventing dementia, although, in the latter case, he did not conduct clinical trials. Anecdotally, he noticed that after he started recommending niacin to his older relatives, over a twenty-five year period, none developed dementia. He recommended a daily 3 grams of niacin or niacinimide for people in their fifties and older, along with an equal amount of vitamin C and a B complex.

The endorsement surrounding B vitamins, and vitamins in general, is rather timid, and vitamins may never become officially sanctioned by the medical profession because, after all, vitamins in their pure form can't be patented. They are low cost. If you want to get serious about getting the best benefits from them, you often have to take megadoses, and that's when it gets tricky. Very few doctors will go on record to endorse high doses of vitamins. Their patients, on the other hand, often take their health concerns into their own hands. Nobel prize winning chemist Dr. Linus Pauling collaborated with Abram Hoffer in research into high dose vitamin C as an adjunct cancer therapy.

Here's what Dr. de Jager has to say. It's hardly bold. To my way of thinking, if you want results, you probably need consistent and high daily doses of certain vitamins targetted to the specific condition.

"People should not begin taking supplements without consulting their doctor because they can have a harmful impact on other conditions such as cancer," she added.

Asked if she would take the vitamins as a precaution, Dr de Jager said: "I would ask the doctor to check my B12 and my folic acid levels for starters."

"I take supplements when I'm feeling a bit low, I don't take one every day but I would certainly have multi-vitamins and B vitamins in my cupboard."

An excellent web site with factual information on vitamins and supplements is www.doctoryourself.com

Alcoholism and niacin

The relationship of Bill W., one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, with niacin therapy is controversial. I first became aware of Bill W. and A.A. in Dr. Abram Hoffer's book How to Live with Schizophrenia. 'PASS IT ON' the biography of Bill Wilson also discusses this chapter in A.A.'s development.

Dr. Abram Hoffer used megadoses of niacin to treat his schizophrenic and alcoholic patients because his research indicated that they were suffering from a vitamin B3 deficiency, similar to what is seen with pellagra. Pellagra is cured by introducing B3 into the diet just like scurvy is cured by ingesting vitamin C. One indication of a possible vitamin B3 deficiency is nicotine or alcohol addiction, another is severe acne.

I wish I had known about vitamin B3 when Chris developed severe acne as a teenager. Instead, I put him on medication. There may be no causal connection whatsoever, but within a few months of going off the medication, Chris was starting to develop psychosis. He may have already been developing early signs of psychosis due to the acne.

Vitamin B3 also lowers blood cholesterol. I can personally attest to this. I take 3 grams of niacinimide every day and six grams of vitamin C, along with a B complex vitamin. Every two years I see the company medical service for a check-up. The doctor remarks that while my good cholesterol is somewhat elevated, my "bad" cholesterol readings are the lowest she has ever seen.

I am a big fan on megavitamin therapy because I have personally experienced the results. So it is a bit troubling to read that Bill W., who also found niacin therapy very helpful in treating his addictions, parted ways with A.A. over niacin.

'PASS IT ON' describes the rift that developed over Bill W. endorsing a product or ethos that was outside of A.A.'s considered mandate. Now, apart from the fact that Bill W. may have been overzealous in trying to convert others in the organization to the benefits of niacin, I question why an organization dedicated to helping people with alcohol problems wouldn't be more open-minded on the subject of vitamin therapy. Vitamins are not patented. You can buy whatever brand of niacin and vitamin C you choose, and they will all be more or less the same. Bill W. didn't appear to be saying that A.A. should be aligning itself with a certain vitamin producing company or brand of vitamins. He was saying that A. A. could be aligning itself with the belief that alcoholics could also improve their health with niacin.

Having read both Dr. Hoffer's and A.A.'s book, I now understand how the alcoholism came to be viewed as a disease. Prior to the vitamin research done in the 1940s, alcoholism was viewed as a moral weaknesses. The beginnings of A.A. grew out of the Oxford Group, which took a more Christian attitude to the problems of alcoholism. Indeed, it was Carl Jung who advised Roland H. to find a religious experience if he was ever going to beat this. Bill W. got quite far in his recovery from alcoholism by subscribing to the A.A. 12 steps, but he also became interested in the biochemical model of alcoholism when he met Doctors Hoffer and Osmond, who had initially introduced him to LSD. He felt that the LSD experience was beneficial, and he further benefited from the niacin work done by the same doctors.

To me, Bill W. was doing what responsible people should when it comes to their own health, which is to be open-minded to more than one intervention. A.A. embraced the alcoholism as disease concept, but fell short of presenting further information to its members about vitamins that they could choose to follow or not. There is a lesson here about organizations and your freedom to choose. Take the best of what they can offer, but keep in mind that your allegiance is to your own health. There will often be a conflict.

A. A., LSD, and SZ

Doctors Abram Hoffer and Humphrey Osmond had a pronounced biochemical approach to alcoholism and schizophrenia. Their research showed niacin (vitamin B3) was an effective treatment in combination with vitamin C and other B-vitamins. Bill W. and A.A. had taken a more spiritual approach to the understanding of alcoholism, which had been derived from the teachings of the Oxford Group (later renamed Moral Rearmament).

Bill W. was introduced to these doctors in the 1950s, initially because of their work using LSD and mescaline on their schizophrenic and alcoholic patients in Saskatchewan. In the case of alcoholics they noticed that many who had once experienced an attack of delirium tremens swore off alcohol for good. Hoffer and Osmond thought that if they introduced LSD under controlled settings to alcoholics, it would give them a taste of what was in store for them if they continued to drink.

Bill W. at first resisted the idea of giving alcoholics more drugs, but later changed his mind. His thinking was not what Hoffer and Osmond were thinking, though. "It was not the material itself that actually produces these experiences. It seems to have the result of sharply reducing the forces of the ego -- temporarily, of course. It is a generally acknowledge fact in spiritual development that ego reduction makes the influx of God's grace
possible."

Many psychiatrists at this time also acknowledged that a high percentage of alcoholics were also schizophrenics and reasoned that LSD was one way of shortening the long process of psychotherapy. I couldn't agree more. Should we have to wait for a random chance encounter with God's grace if there is some way we can experience it sooner?

The non-chemical experience that Chris has been undertaking recently with the sound shaman seems as close to LSD as you can get and still be legal. Chris tells me he feels happy, but he knows he doesn't look especially happy and he is very unsure of what he wants. Chris these days reminds me of Aldous Huxley's quote. "The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance but better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries forever, vainly, to comprehend."

A.A. outside of Bill W. wasn't keen to align itself with LSD. It was nonetheless a controversial drug and only became more so once it found its way into street use in the 1960s.

___________
From 'PASS IT ON' The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world, Alcoholics Anonymous World Service, Inc. 1984, pg. 383-385.

Niacin prevents Alzheimer's disease

I have been exchanging a flurry of e-mails with my older sister over the past few days. Since my mother developed the signs of dementia/Alzheimer's (does it really matter which?) in her late seventies, her three daughters have been understandably concerned about preventing it.

I first learned about prevention of dementia from Dr. Abram Hoffer. He experienced great success with his own mother and went on to recommend it for other members of his family, none of whom developed dementia. I immediately started on the same combination of vitamins that Dr. Hoffer recommends for schizophrenia. I felt there was a connection between my mother's dementia and Chris's schizophrenia. Both are related to the nervous system.

I saw dramatic results within three days. These results have stayed with me. I am faithful to my daily regime of 3 grams Vitamin B3, 3 grams vitamin C, 3 B complex tablets, omega 3 and zinc.

Dramatic results:

1. Sharp, focused thinking
2. Improved skin
3. Thicker hair

Dr. Hoffer advises that you reverse dementia if you catch its early signs, which he did with his mother, but that once dementia has set in, there is no turning back the symptoms. He also advises that if you begin the regime in your sixties, you need straight niacin, not niacinimide or flushless niacin.

Here's an interesting background story on niacin preventing Alzheimer's disease from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, dated December 9, 2008
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n25.shtml I urge you to read it.

Niacin to the rescue

While we waited for the niacin cream to arrive, I had a rather amazing stroke of insight. I asked for guidance from God/the knowledge field and I got the answer the next morning. It is rather simple. I remembered that Dr. Hoffer wrote of a young man and his worried parents who came to see him. Dr Hoffer prescribed his standard niacin/vitamin C/zinc, etc. mixture and the young man went away. He came back from time to time for a check-up. Dr Hoffer asked him how he was managing and the young man replied that he still enjoyed his fantasies but when he felt he was going too far over the edge, he simply downed a bottle of niacinamide. Dr Hoffer was taken aback that the young man would take so many in one go, but reasoned that it worked for him so why criticize the unorthodox method? This young man was on the brink of psychosis or perhaps was even swimming in it and yet he managed to pull himself back by taking large amounts of niacin.

I looked at how much niacinamide Chris was prescribed and it was only one gram a day, although his doctor had told me to raise it to two while we waited for the niacin cream to arrive. So, Chris was taking two grams a day. Would doubling it to four grams or even five grams a day keep Chris from losing total contact with reality? Dr Hoffer recommended anywhere up to six grams a day for his patients with an equal amount of vitamin C (to prevent possible liver damage) and a B complex to make the niacinamide work efficiently. So, without consulting with his doctor, I simply upped Chris's dose and added the requisite amounts of vitamin C and B complex. Previously, I would have been concerned about doing anything without first checking with his doctor, but now I felt free to do what I felt was right.

The diagnosis food chain

My cherished holistic recovery program lay in a heap of ashes on the floor. I wasn't even sure if I was up to the job anymore. I had so many questions in my mind that I was unable to answer. With all that Chris has gone through over a period of six years and all the interventions he had undergone, why wasn't he better off? How is it that Dr Hoffer claimed such good results, even with young men? How is it that other people claim victory on vitamins alone? Why was unskilled me having to feel my way all by myself? Having to do this all by myself, and reaching this new low, I no longer knew if down was up or if up was down.

I was angry with the public face of the psychiatric profession. Psychiatrists spend more time fighting among themselves over theories of madness and therapeutic interventions than doing something constructive, like putting down their differences and saying to the patient “this particular therapy might just work for you!” Instead, they demonize the opposition by calling their ideas “dangerous” or "“untested”.

If I could wring anything positive out of the past few months, it was that Chris was moving up the diagnosis food chain. To those who care about a label, moving to what looks like depression and/or bipolar (to me schizophrenia and bipolar are one and the same) or schizoaffective or OCD, is an improvement over schizophrenia. Becoming angry, hostile and at times tearful seemed like a needed improvement over apathetic, ambivalent Chris.

Poetry and play reading

Before and after our visit to the shaman, Chris attended a daily outpatient program for young people with mental health problems. He was an enigma to the staff. During our monthly meetings with his doctor, it was difficult to convince him to lower Chris’s medications because Chris’s “clinical” presentation was so poor. Chris was fairly happy and moderately talkative at home, but assumed the role of a mental patient at the program.

My exasperation sometimes spilled over. “Chris, can’t you just fake it for once?” I would complain. “Dr. 'L' holds the keys to the insane asylum. You need his blessing to get him off my back and agree to lower the medications. He is GO. You have to pass GO to collect the two hundred dollars. Get it?”

No, Chris didn’t get it. He appeared not to be able to fake his way out of whatever it was that was keeping him labeled “hopeless” at the program. Dr. 'L' told us in our next meeting that the staff were instructed to treat Chris especially gently. He obviously considered Chris a “nut case,” although he didn’t use that word. Instead, he said that he and the other doctors thought Chris was very bright, but they just didn’t know what the problem was. He pointed out that Chris had difficulty using scissors to cut paper during art therapy. “But, you know,” said Dr. 'L' earnestly, “we are amazed he is very good in acting class.”

I realized that I didn’t care any more what kind of clinical impression Chris gave. Maybe the clinic was the problem, I thought. True, it didn’t look good not to be able to cut paper, but then why was Chris able to do these things and more at home? He could quite dexterously handle tools to help fix things around the house. Maybe there was something wrong with having to perform for others at a clinic, to be judged by those around you, and to be compared to an apple when you are an orange, or maybe even a grape. Whatever the clinic was doing, it wasn’t doing it for me or for Chris. I had seen enough by then to realize that inside an institution was possibly the last place anyone would get well.

I had internalized some messages that now guided my thinking. Message number one (from Dr. Hoffer): Nobody who relies on drugs alone will ever get well. Message number two (from Dr. Klinghardt): The root of schizophrenia is often found at the fourth (intuitive) level of healing; if the problem doesn’t clear with therapies aimed at the first (physical) level, look to level four.

Dr. 'L' suggested that we read Waiting for Godot, as Chris reminded him of that play. It was easy enough to see why—the meaninglessness, indecisiveness, and inertness in the play mirrored Chris’s existence. Thereafter, for a brief period, Ian and I enlivened our lives, which had become confined to our couch, our television, and a nightly bottle of red wine, with a little play acting. We certainly appreciated where Dr. 'L' was coming from on this one. Ian assigned everybody roles. Taylor was Pozzo; Chris was Vladimir; Ian, Estragon; and I was the narrator. Chris read his part like a seasoned professional. He stepped outside of himself for once. His face took on an enthusiasm and a flourish. The play was the thing for him.

After spending several evenings on Waiting for Godot, we switched to poetry readings. Each of us read a favorite poem. Chris, in a clear and confident voice, with evident feeling and from memory, immediately volunteered this poem by Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

(Fire and Ice by Robert Frost)

I recognize this poem as a very appealing to a schizophrenic sensibility. Fire/ice, love/hate. Ambivalence and death with a dollop of guilt thrown in.

We had informally approached Level 4 through our play reading and poetry. I saw the positive effect this had on Chris. More of this approach was needed to appeal to what was going on in his mind. We had done all we could at the base level of vitamins and electromagnetic interventions. We had yet to approach level 4 formally through therapy.

Desperate housewife

A reader contacted me. He was clearly alarmed at the direction in which he felt I personally am heading. He referred to my "grasping at straws", my being "on a crusade", and urged me to avoid "snake oil". He expressed his opinion that all of this plus maternal guilt was clouding my ability to think rationally. According to the reader, this means that I am not providing effective support for Chris. Furthermore, by claiming center stage I am placing my needs before Chris's. My blog, he feels, is a coping mechanism.

Since the reader knows me only through what I have written, his perception is valid. I believe in turn that I have pushed the bounds of his comfort zone.

My blog is about holistic recovery from schizophrenia. It also happens to include many references to my own understanding/healing process that was needed under the circumstances. The Cambridge Online Dictionary defines holistic as "relating to the whole of something or to the total system instead of just to its parts." My interpretation of holistic has grown to include self-examination as a component of Chris's and my healing process. I submit that looking at how I may have contributed to Chris's existential dilemma is a valid way forward. I do not feel "guilty" and neither should anyone in these circumstances. Guilt doesn't heal people.

Holistic recovery means that we are taking advantage of what healing information is currently out there and available. The information is not from traditional medicine. Going holistic means moving off level one of the healing pyramid. Level one is about treating illnesses, not just mental illnesses, with vitamin therapy, diet, medications and surgery, where necessary.

Once we move off level one we are headed into the realm of energy medicine, energy psychology, psychotherapy in its many branches, acupuncture, homeopathy, yoga, meditation, chakras, shamanism, out of body experiences, the Akashic records, meaningful coincidences, quantum physics, near death experiences. These pick up where Dr. Hoffer and other proponents of orthomolecular medicine left off. (See: Energy psychology and Emotional Freedom Technique - April 21. 2009.) When orthomolecular medicine was introduced it tread on a lot of people's comfort zones. It still does, to some people.

All of the therapies that I discuss in my blog incorporate the idea in one form or another that human beings are energy masses. We vibrate. Our molecules rub up against other people's molecules. We have cellular memory. The individual has his own energy field, but the family also has an energy field. I believe that psychotherapy as a discipline implicitly acknowledges our molecular co-dependence but does not usually describe itself using these terms.

Correcting misaligned energy can be done physically and psychically. It can be done by a doctor, a shaman, a psychiatrist, a priest or through your own thought process. This is a new concept that is vying for a place alongside orthomolecular medicine and psychotherapy in treating mental illness. New ideas invariably disturb people's comfort zones. They take a long time to gain acceptance.

I occupy center stage in my blog because I write it. Writing any blog seems like an inherently narcissistic act. Where I hope my value added lies is precisely because I am the mother and I am willing to share some of myself and Chris with others. Chris and I have undergone many of the therapies together, which means I can report on them with some confidence. Publishing this may leave people with the impression that I am desperately clutching at straws and trying to convince people that if people would only do what Chris and I are doing, all will be well. We know it doesn't work that way.

A holistic approach has taught me to appreciate that there are no such thing as coincidences. By contacting me when he did, my reader has helped me think about perception. I am sharing Chris's and my experiences in the higher levels of healing to allow you to cherry pick what you want from the realm of healing possibilities. It is not desperation on my part that drives me to investigate these rather unusual therapies for Chris. These therapies have helped Chris to heal in ways that the medications did not do. They might just do the same for you.

The shaman's blow

The assemblage point shift is similar in principle to electroshock therapy. Both therapies can be used to address depression, mania, schizophrenia, and catatonia. However, shifting the assemblage point is noninvasive compared to electroshock. It complements Hoffer's and Osmond's understanding of the link between the hallucinogenic plants of the American Southwest and the state of mental well-being. (See: Why it is an honor to pay income tax - April 16, 2009)

In Castaneda’s The Fire from Within, Don Juan repeatedly warns about the health dangers that come from an assemblage point that has been knocked off center. Both legal and illicit drug use can knock an assemblage point off center. Don Juan uses peyote and other medicinal plants to induce a hallucinatory state in Castaneda. To bring him back to a balanced state afterwards, Jon Whale observes that Don Juan surreptitiously gave the author a quick sharp blow to the shoulder blade, popularly referred to as the shaman’s blow.

Dr. Whale has observed that psychiatric drugs do a poor job of moving the assemblage point back into position. According to him, psychiatric drugs do not take into account the complexities of the endocrine system and leave the patient in a chronic depressed state rather than correcting the situation. Dr. Hoffer’s niacin treatment is, in my opinion, another way of realigning the assemblage point. Whether you hallucinate naturally (e.g. schizophrenia) or unnaturally (e.g. mescaline and peyote), the antidote is the same: moving the assemblage point back into its correct position.

Trauma in suburbia

The trauma or shock basis of schizophrenia seems to be accepted by the holistic medical community but does not get a lot of play in the mainstream medical community. In fact, no medical doctor we consulted ever raised the issue with us. What they did say was a little different. I remember being asked by two different doctors what Chris was like at the age of ten. This seemed like a strange question at the time. I was too shell-shocked myself from the diagnosis to ask them why they raised the question. So, instead I answered,"well, uh, let's see. He was overweight and into playing Magic cards. Other than that, there's not much to report. He had friends, he seemed normal".

After learning about the role of shock in schizophrenia, I reviewed Chris's childhood for signs of shock, but nothing I could think of pointed to a dramatic, isolating event. We lived in suburbia - how dramatic is that? We went to church, my husband and I hadn't divorced, Chris and his brothers attended Cub Scouts, we had neighborhood boys tearing through the house in great numbers. It seemed white bread boring compared to the kind of shock that schizophrenia produces on the radar screen.

What I do know is this: Chris was a ten month pregnancy and he barely moved in utero. That is unusual. His birth was long and difficult. He didn't have a lot of energy as a child but he also never got sick. He was abnormally healthy, almost supernaturally so. I did find it a bit strange that a child who never even had a cold developed severe acne as a teenager. Dr. Abram Hoffer observes that his patients tended never to be sick as children and that many people who subsequently develop schizophrenia had severe acne in their teenage years. (Severe acne is characteristic of pellagra, or lack of vitamin B3.)

Chris was not given to emotional outbursts and apart from crying as a baby I remember seeing him cry only once when a door slammed on his finger. He had trouble making choices and he avoided confrontation. He left it to others to choose for him. Me: "Carrots or peas, Chris?" He: "Oh, I don't care, you decide." While this was troubling, it wasn't so troubling that we thought about doing something about it. Chris was a thinker and he was musically talented. He did well in school and he had interests and activities so we overlooked this aspect of his personality, hoping that time would rectify it. I remember thinking, this kid is too perfect. Being perfect was troubling, even then. I felt we were overdue somehow for "the big one."

A short history of antipsychotics

Dr. Abram Hoffer has much to say on what happened to mental illness after the introduction of atypical antipsychotics in the 1970s. Atypical antipsychotics are the second-generation antipsychotics, which have fewer side effects than the first-generation "typical" antipsychotics introduced in the 1950s. The second-generation antipsychotics are tranquilizers that still produce side effects. With the second-generation drugs, people were fit enough to leave the hospital but not fit enough to hold down jobs. Psychiatric hospitals emptied, but the streets filled up with people unable to manage their medications or who preferred a life unmedicated to a life and and spirit controlled by medication.

Dr. Hoffer writes: "I am pleased with my medical colleagues who are quickly moving into this modern paradigm (megavitamin therapy), and am very frustrated by the massive inertia of my psychiatric colleagues who are still waiting for the Holy Grail, that new tranquilizer which appears every year, which will do for schizophrenia what insulin does for diabetes. The number of homeless chronic schizophrenics in the streets of all large American and Canadian cities is evidence of their inability to do more for them than we could do in 1950 before we had any tranquilizers. But at least then we had hospitals which provided shelter and food and some care. Today the downtown slums have become the surrogate mental hospital beds for the chronic patients whose treatment has been wholly tranquilizers."

In the United States, a 1951 amendment to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act meant that all the new drugs produced after World War II, which included second-generation antipsychotics, as well as antidepressants and antibiotics, could only be issued by prescription.When medication became the new Holy Grail, megavitamin therapy was tossed out. It lived on in communities of adherents here and there, but their voices were drowned over the next few decades as the number of antipsychotics on the market proliferated.

The tyranny of vitamins

I am still trying to figure out how Dr. Hoffer got such great results using a small amount of supplements with no recommended changes in diet (e.g. elimination of gluten and sugar) and no talk of psychotherapy. A reader has pointed out to me that Dr Hoffer does indeed recommend eliminating or restricting dairy, gluten, sugar and junk food in the diet. That is absolutely correct. However, for many years before the importance of diet became recognized in treating mental health disorders, Dr. Hoffer just carried on with his basic vitamin recommendations (and medications when necessary) and got good results.

Perhaps the most important reason that Dr. Hoffer had such success with his patients is that he believed in what he did. He encouraged his patients and their families to think that they could recover using vitamins. He used medications sparingly. Belief is everything, especially coming from a doctor. I also think he got these results because his patients didn't get side tracked by competing claims.

For the past thirty years or more we have been told that the newer (atypical) antipsychotics are better than the older (typical) antipsychotics. We have gotten further and further away from challenging whether antipsychotics are really needed in the first place. We have allowed ourselves to become managed by pharmaceuticals, but never cured. Is it possible that this same thing is happening with vitamins?

Today, vitamins are big business. They are state-of-the-art. They are well-researched, very good and adaptive. Alas, I have become immobilized through too much specialization and choice. I'm afraid of getting it wrong. For vitamin C you have a wide choice of delivery and added benefits, e.g. powder, liquid, capsule, with varying combinations of other vitamins and minerals. Buying vitamins is like ordering a coffee at Starbucks. I'd just like a regular coffee, thanks.

Chris is taking way more vitamins than Dr. Hoffer ever recommended, and he still isn't in a position to pay income tax. Here's what taking 35 supplements a day entails. The pills, powders and liquids have to be carefully measured, the pills put in packages and labeled. There is no plastic thingy big enough to hold all the pills so I put them all in paper packs, which I cut, fold, tape and label. Enough to last seven days or 21 paper packs in all. This goes on week in, week out. All the vitamins have to be shipped to our home. There is always the danger of running out. All of these vitamins, Chris's doctor has told me, are crucial to his some aspect of his functioning.

I would love to scale the vitamins back to just the Dr Hoffer basics. My husband and Chris don't seem inclined to rotate the position of chief pill dispenser. They are not as methodical as I am about the procedures involved. This is why women are entrusted with childcare, I remind them.

Believing in recovery

Many of us don't believe in recovery. We think we do, but we are often unwilling to take the necessary steps. While I am admittedly hard on doctors, doctors can only get away with what they do because they have you as a patient. You may be of the scientific persuasion, a person who reassures him/herself with facts, double-blind studies, and the latest findings in leading scientific journals. You and your doctor will no doubt be very sympatico. When your doctor tells you there is no hope, you will believe him because it fits with the kind of person you are. You will continue to take your meds and be a good patient. You are most likely very conversant with what is written in the product literature.

The technical language of psychosis is so dreary it is hard to muster any hope. Prodromal symptoms, extrapyramidal symptoms - this vocabulary is how schizophrenia is introduced to new patients and their worried relatives. A big downer. When Chris was first hospitalized five years ago, the social worker told me brightly that why, in five to 10 years time, exciting changes were foreseen. I believe she was alluding to a miracle cure. The problem was, Chris didn't have five to 10 years to wait for something that had eluded medical science for the past 100 years. He needed to start getting better immediately.

It is now over five years for Chris and I have yet to see that miracle cure, although I hear there is one underway. Nor do I expect one. It has taken me at least four years to realize that schizophrenia isn't all about the biochemistry. Your doctor believes it's all about getting the biochemistry right, though. In my experience, it's not just the doctor prescribing medications who talks almost exclusively biochemistry, it may also be the doctor who is trained in alternative, complementary medicine. An MD after the name still makes doctors think mainly in terms of biochemistry.

Like Chris's doctor who conceded initially that vitamins may not help, but they probably don't hurt, this is how most medical doctors view the psycho/spiritual side of psychosis. They give it a place, but not a big one. Then they get right back to focusing on the biochemistry. The psychiatrists who specialize in certain therapies, such as Jungian, Freudian, Adlerian, Gestalt, etc. have a much broader perspective on the mind's power to heal itself. These kinds of doctors are a luxury for many. We have also been told for the past several decades that "talk therapy" is of little help for schizophrenia.

If you are going to reach beyond a purely disease approach, become open minded to the rich tapestry of life, to writers, poets and people who think differently than your doctor does about the human condition.

Why it is an honor to pay income tax

In the 1950s, Dr. Abram Hoffer, together with Dr. Humphrey Osmond, successfully treated hundreds of schizophrenic patients at the Saskatchewan Hospital, with supplements aimed at correcting the body’s biochemical imbalances, a treatment approach later termed “orthomolecular medicine.”

Dr. Osmond and his student Dr. John Smythies noticed that schizophrenic hallucinations are like hallucinations suffered by otherwise normal people who have taken a bad mescaline trip. Mescaline belongs to a family of psychedelic compounds known as phenethylamines. It is present in several cactus species of the American Southwest and the Andes mountain range of South America and used by native American tribes in certain religious and mystical practices. Adrenaline, which is naturally produced in the body, is similar in its properties to mescaline.

Drs. Hoffer and Osmond hypothesized that schizophrenics produce an excess amount of an amino acid similar to adrenaline (which they called “adrenochrome”); this amino acid is also produced naturally in the body. Dr. Hoffer determined that adrenochrome belongs to a different family of psychedelic compounds known as “indoles.” (LSD is an indole.) Dr Hoffer prescribed niacin in high doses to reduce adrenochrome levels. It works.

Dr. Hoffer defines recovery from schizophrenia as threefold: The person is able to function well with friends and family, is free of signs and symptoms, and is able to pay income tax.

Dr Hoffer is still in the minority of doctors and institutions who think so optimistically about schizophrenia. The standard medical opinion is that the most one can expect is managed recovery, quality of life, and part time work if any. Dr Hoffer expects more. Why are most so-called experts setting the bar so low? It surely has something to do with the word "cure". Many people shudder at the use of the word cure” in the context of schizophrenia. A cure simply means that someone with an illness has become healthy again or it can be the solution to a problem. If you rely solely on pharmaceutical solutions, curing schizophrenia is difficult, if not impossible.

Be wary of institutions that talk about ending discrimination of the mentally ill, e.g. the problem with mental illness is "stigma". No, the problem with mental illness is that people are not getting well in sufficiently large numbers. The mentally ill have been discriminated against because they haven't been seriously helped to get well. Most institutions promote mental illness as chronic and hopeless. Let's not set the bar so low. Why, for heaven’s sake, instead of celebrating people whom they seem to regard as chronically disabled, don’t these organizations say that they are dedicated to helping people with serious mental illness get over it and get on with their lives? Why not, indeed?