Nutrition and Mental Illness: An Orthomolecular Approach to Balancing Body Chemistry

Rating:
Summary: Great overview of how nutrition affects mental well being.
Review: as an orthomolecular- nutritionist,i must recommand this book, because of only one reason- it is work!, and i see it with my patients.a very organised and scientific book that explains the mental illnesses in the orthomolecular-way, and is very easy to understand and to follow. this is the real orthomolecular therapy for mental illness. buy this book today.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I have lived with Manic Depressive illness for over half of my life. Her books were true to life as if she were talking to me. I have worked with mental illness as patients I have been a priviate nurse worked with Alzimers patients for 8 yrs. Kay"s book have given me hope and strength to face what I have to each and every day. I was taking the drug Lithium as she did.For 30 yr then it became infective resulting in an episode requireing 11 days in a locked up hospital mental unit it has been 2 yr and I still suffer sleepless nights and turn to her books for help. Her books are great I can't say enough.

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Summary: American article by Kay Redfield have most of her books
Review: I have lived with Manic Depressive illness for over half of my life. Her books were true to life as if she were talking to me. I have worked with mental illness as patients I have been a priviate nurse worked with Alzimers patients for 8 yrs. Kay"s book have given me hope and strength to face what I have to each and every day. I was taking the drug Lithium as she did.For 30 yr then it became infective resulting in an episode requireing 11 days in a locked up hospital mental unit it has been 2 yr and I still suffer sleepless nights and turn to her books for help. Her books are great I can't say enough.

Rating:
Summary: A great book for those with bipolar disorder & schizophrenia
Review: If you were to walk into a doctor's office today with scurvy, he or she would prescribe a vitamin to return you to health.

If you were to walk into a doctor's office today with pellagra (which can cause psychotic symptoms), he or she would prescribe a vitamin to return you to health.

But if you were to walk into a doctor's office today with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, he or she would have you take powerful medications that cause changes to the brain. Generally speaking, changes to the brain are described as brain damage.

What your doctor will not tell you, perhaps because he or she won't know about it, is that there is abundant evidence that some - to repeat myself, some but not all - cases of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are caused by vitamin deficiencies, and respond quite well to vitamin and mineral treatment.

Carl Pfeiffer was one of the doctors, who beginning in the 50s, looked for nutrional causes of psychotic disorders. And they did find that some syndromes such as pyroluria did deplete a crucial vitamin (B6) to a critical extent, and that supplementing this vitamin returned many to sanity.

By the time this was established however, the preferred treatment of such disorders were heavy medications, which had vested interests behind them. In 1973 studies were done, which Dr. Pfeiffer and others alledged didn't adequately reflect their treatment guidelines, that did not get any positive results, and the idea that vitamin and mineral deficiencies may play a role in psychotic disorders was declared to be "junk science." One of the five experts on the panel that investigated this treatment approach announced publically before the study that even if every other psychiatrist in the United States would adopt vitamins and minerals in their armamentarium of treatments for schizophrenia, he would refuse to believe they work or use them. One wonders whether the panel was unbiased.

As you may know, doctors that practice medicine based on "junk science" can have their license revoked, and thus this nutrient-based approach to psychiatry pretty much disappeared.

For some odd reason however, many people, more than 25,000 bipolars and schizophrenics have responded extremely well to this approach. A friend who has tried this approach for such a disorder is extremely pleased.

Dr. Pfeiffer was either a complete charlatan, or a man ahead of his time. I believe the latter to be true, as, in this book, published in 1987, he mentions that maintaining a sufficient intake of omega-3 fatty acids is another crucial factor to the well-being of bipolar and schizophrenic patients.

In 2002 a Harvard psychopharmacologist by the name of Stoll published a book called "The Omega-3 Connection: The Groundbreaking Antidepression Diet and Brain Program." Dr. Stoll had been derided by his peers for his belief that certain fatty acids usually found in fish were crucial to having a healthy brain, but when a study of his on the use of Omega-3s in bipolar disorder produced phenomenal results, the accolades began to flow in. Amazon.com describes Dr. Stoll's book as a "must read."

I feel that a book that said the same thing - and much, much more - 15 years earlier is another "must read."

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Great overview of how nutrition affects mental well being.
Review: This book was a great source of information. It was short and to the point. I did not feel like I was waisting my time on detail that weren't of interest to me. A great reference tool.