Nutrition and Mental Illness: An Orthomolecular Approach to Balancing Body and Mind [Paperback]

The author of this book, Carl Curt Pfeiffer, MD, PhD, was the Chair of the Pharmacology Department at the Emory University, which is known for its superb psychiatric research. At some point in his career, the State of New Jersey tasked him with investigating the causes of the more serious mental illness such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Not only do these illnesses cause huge disruptions to the lives of those so afflicted, but also are a significant burden to the taxpayer.

After doing all sorts of tests - examining patients' blood and urine for unusual substances and characteristics, looking at hair mineral contents and much, much, more Dr. Pfeiffer, (and some coworkers) announced that they had made a number of breakthroughs. 30 some percent of this patient population, they announced, had a previously unknown form of Wilson's disease, a disease in which toxic copper accumulates in the brain. Another 30 some percent had a disorder in their body's ability to synthesize hemoglobin, which caused the depletion of vitamins crucial to a well-tempered brain. Another 10 or so percent had very unusual blood chemistries, yet another 10 percent or so suffered under food allergies that went undiagnosed because they only affected the brain. Dr. Pfeiffer attributed the last 10 percent to various rare or unknown causes. Even more dramatically, Pfeiffer found that all of the conditions he had discovered could be treated with nutritional supplements instead of expensive and side-effect laden medications. Interestingly enough, Ashley Bush, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, is reporting that some forms of Alzheimer's most likely are caused by the same tendency to accumulate copper that Dr. Pfeiffer identified.

At the time that Pfeiffer published all this, psychiatric treatment in the United States, even for bipolar disorder, consisted of long (and costly) sessions of psychoanalysis of questionable efficacy, and strong medications. If there is a very real biological problem at the root of the illness, no amount of talking about one's early childhood or supposed repressed sexual frustrations will do the patient any good from a medical or financial point of view. Dr. Pfeiffer's findings that these illnesses had clear biological causes, and could quickly be cured by the use of nutritional supplements - that is without patented medications - and by general practitioners - was not completely welcome.

The American Psychiatric Association convened a panel to investigate Dr. Pfeiffer's findings. To this day it is unclear if they got a fair hearing; one member of the panel went into it saying that even if every other psychiatrist in the United States would adopt Dr. Pfeiffer's therapies, he would refuse to believe that they worked. In any event, the panel found that there was no evidence that Dr. Pfeiffer's diagnostic or therapeutic guidelines had any validity. This is not to dispute that good intent was to be found on the panel; one of the experts, Loren Mosher, once responsible for such research at the NIH, had his own non-mainstream views on the causes of such disorders, and sacrificed his career to advance them.

Curiously enough, there is a clinic in the outskirts of Chicago devoted to treating patients according to Dr. Pfeiffer's diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines. Among its thousands and thousands of patients, it has managed to successfully treat 65% of its patients without medications; in another 25% they see marked improvements. Either they have some of the best placebos known to mankind, or else Dr. Pfeiffer and his co-workers were wonderful doctors whose ideas smaller-minded doctors couldn't accept.

I personally suspect that some further discoveries have been made in the years since Dr. Pfeiffer and his co-workers investigated all this. Specifically, there is evidence to suggest that heavy metals can cause the unusual substances found in the urine and the unusual blood counts of which Dr. Pfeiffer wrote. All the same, his therapies appear to be incomparably better than what most doctors in the United States have to offer. If I, or one of my loved ones, labored under the illnesses Dr. Pfeiffer sought to treat, I would be sure to acquaint myself with his work, and see what relief could be obtained. This book is the perfect introduction to his findings for lay readers.

This book has really changed and helped my life, I have never been this happy, and the B6 causes the most pleasent dreams I have ever had. 20 years from now a ZMA(zinc and magnesium) supplement with B6 will be as common as taking your daily vitamin. No wonder so many women get their blues during their cycle, depletion of the most important trace metals the human body needs.

Dr. Carl Pfeiffer is deceased (probably why the clinic is no more) but his research lives on. I believe a colleague took over and started a new center with a different name. Dr. Pfeiffer called the condition pyroluria, however, I believe his successors call it zinc and magnesium deficiency. A neighbor sought treatment for her daughter from the Pfeiffer Treatment Center, (when it existed) which at that time also offered temporary satellite facilities so people didn't need to travel to NJ. Her daughter improved so drastically it was amazing. Diagnosed with mental illness, as long as she stayed on the supplements, she was functional. Pfeiffer took hair samples from all the serial killers on death row and found one unifying trait - these vitamin deficiencies. I first saw Dr. Pfeiffer on the Phil Donohoe years ago. I wrote down his name and the term for the condition and then in college did a research paper on the Biochemistry of Crime, using Dr Pfeiffer's research as part of my assertion. All I can say, is don't knock it unless you've tried it. I have seen living proof that his research premise is sound.

After all, we already know that the food we eat does not actually provide the nutrients that the FDA claims they do since 40 years ago an orange offered more vitamin C than it has in it today. The beef today is more marbled with fat than 40 years ago since cattle used to be free range and so had more muscle and less fat in their tissue. And how does every living mammal (including humans) deal with toxins? They are stored in the fat cells. So if you eat beef marbled with more fat than 40 years ago, you are consuming more toxins (from the cattle) too. With digestive problems fast becoming an explosive problem in the U.S., is it any wonder that whatever is consumed may not be absorbed even if it provided the nutrients it was supposed to?

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