Where does cancer come from?

Cancer cells arise from a toxic chemical, biological, or radiation exposure. Their DNA has been mutated, and they begin to reproduce abnormally fast. Normally, the immune system recognizes cancer cells and isolates and destroys them without intervention. But if there are too many, or your immune system is compromised, they reproduce rapidly and then spread using a protein-dissolving enzyme called protease. Continue Reading >>

Orthomolecular Medicine - For Health and Mental Illness

Orthomolecular medicine describes the practice of preventing and treating disease by providing the body with optimal amounts of substances which are natural to the body. The term "orthomolecular" was first used by Linus Pauling in a paper he wrote in the journal Science in 1968. This paper first described the theoretical foundations for what was later to become a specialty within complementary medicine.

The key idea in orthomolecular medicine is that genetic factors are central not only to the physical characteristics of individuals, but also to their biochemical milieu. Biochemical pathways of the body have significant genetic variability in terms of transcriptional potential and individual enzyme concentrations, receptor-ligand affinities and protein transporter efficiency. Diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancer, schizophrenia or depression are associated with specific biochemical abnormalities which are either causal or aggravating factors of the illness. In the orthomolecular view, it is possible that the provision of vitamins, amino acids, trace elements or fatty acids in amounts sufficient to correct biochemical abnormalities will be therapeutic in preventing or treating such diseases.Want to learn more? The following essays give a more detailed overview of the nature, efficacy and history of orthomolecular medicine. Continue Reading >>

Orthomolecular Treatment of Cancer

Between 1978 and March, 1999 I have seen over 1040 patients suffering from cancer who came to me for nutritional and psychiatric counseling. This is no longer a surprising combination as it was when I first started to practice psychiatry in 1952. I attended my first annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Los Angeles, in 1952. I did not meet another psychiatrist there with a PhD in Biochemistry. Since then many more scientists with the double degrees have become active in this field but of these very few actively pursue this particular combination. Orthomolecular theory and practice drives these two together. I have retained my interest in the biochemistry and clinical aspects of nutrition combining this with my education in medicine and later in psychiatry. The recovery of my first patient in 1960 from terminal bronchiogenic cancer of the lung arose from this coalescence of these two disciplines. Continue Reading >>