Some genetic defects treatable with supplements

An article published early online on June 3, 2008 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the prediction of Jasper Rine and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley that soon-to-be-available personalized genome sequencing will uncover minor genetic flaws that can easily be corrected with nutrition, enabling people to personalize their supplement routine.

"Headlines for the last 20 years have really been about the triumph of biomedical research in finding disease genes, which is biologically interesting, genetically important and frightening to people who get this information," Dr Rine. "I became obsessed with trying to decide if there is some other class of information that will make people want to look at their genome sequence."Variations in genes responsible for the production of enzymes involved in metabolism affect the efficiency of these enzymes.

While having two copies of a defective gene can result in one of many rare metabolic diseases that can be treated with vitamin supplements, many individuals have only one copy, or have two copies of only slightly defective genes, whose subtle effects on enzymes, Dr Rine’s team found, could also be remedied by vitamin supplementation. The current study examined one human enzyme, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), which requires the B vitamin folate to function properly.

The enzyme plays a role in DNA nucleotide synthesis. Among 564 individuals, 3 common variants and 11 minor, uncommon genetic variants of MTHFR were found. When these gene variants were synthesized and inserted into yeast cells, the most common variant and 4 of the uncommon variants were found to affect the enzyme's function, yet supplementation of the yeast with folate restored full functionality to all but one of these. Continue Reading

DEPRESSION, MENTAL ILLNESS CURED WITH NUTRITION

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 7, 2005

Mental Health Treatment That Works
(OMNS) Doctors report that mental health problems including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, anti-social and learning disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders often have a common cause: insufficient nutrients in the brain. Nutritionally-oriented physicians assert that the cure for these problems is to give the body the extra nutrients it needs, especially when under abnormal stress.

Orthomolecular medical researchers say the future of psychiatry is in nutrition because nutrition has such a long, safe and effective history of correcting many mental problems. Nutrients such as the B-vitamins are most successful when taken regularly, taken in relatively high doses, and taken in conjunction with vitamin C, the essential fatty acids (EFA’s), and the minerals magnesium and selenium.

A summary of what has worked for many people follows below. The safety of vitamins and minerals is extraordinary, and the expense of trying them is much less than the cost of hazardous pharmaceutical drugs. These nutrients can be purchased in a discount or heath store.

Taking 1,000 mg of vitamin B-3 three times a day often cures mild to moderate depression. Dramatic results are often achieved within one week of beginning this nutritional program, especially in alcoholics. (1)

Sometimes a simple deficiency of vitamin D causes depression. 3,000 I.U./day from all sources can alleviate the problem. (2)

3,000 mg/day or more of niacin (vitamin B-3), along with the same quantity of vitamin C, taken in divided doses throughout the day can successfully treat both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. (3)

Vitamins B-3, B-6, C and the minerals magnesium and zinc frequently produce a good response in ADHD and autistic children. (4)

Vitamins B-6, folate, and B-12 taken together lower elevated homocysteine levels in the elderly while improving mental function. (5)

As pointed out by chemistry professor and vitamin discoverer Roger J. Williams, PhD (6), each individual has different nutritional needs and responds differently to nutrients. Are you tired of being depressed, suffering from anxiety, paying huge prescription drug bills for unsafe prescriptions that don’t solve the problem or produce undesirable side effects? Are you tired of the piece-meal trial and error approach to finding a solution to your mental or emotional problems? If so, adults should consider the following nutritional protocol, which will bathe your brain and nerves in natural nutrients and may well produce dramatic results. The cost of trying the program below is less than the cost of a typical doctor’s office visit. It is safe and convenient. All of these nutrients can be purchased at large discount stores. Continue reading >>

Niacin (Vitamin B3) Lowers High Cholesterol Safely

OMNS - There is a safe, inexpensive, nonprescription, convenient and effective way to reduce high cholesterol levels and reduce heart disease risk: niacin. Niacin is a water-soluble B-complex vitamin, vitamin B-3. One of niacin's unique properties is its ability to help you naturally relax and to fall asleep more rapidly at night. It is well established that niacin helps reduce harmful cholesterol levels in the bloodstream. Niacin is one of the best substances for elevating high density lipoprotein cholesterol (the "good cholesterol) and so decreases the ratio of the total cholesterol over high density cholesterol.

The finding that niacin lowered cholesterol was soon confirmed by Parsons, Achor, Berge, McKenzie and Barker (1956) and Parsons (1961, 1961a, 1962) at the Mayo Clinic, which launched niacin on its way as a hypocholesterolemic substance. Since then it has been found to be a normalizing agent, meaning it elevates high density lipoprotein cholesterol, decreases low density and very low density lipoprotein cholesterol and lowers triglycerides. Grundy, Mok, Zechs and Berman (1981) found it lowered cholesterol by 22 percent and triglycerides by 52 percent and wrote, "To our knowledge, no other single agent has such potential for lowering both cholesterol and triglycerides."

Elevated cholesterol levels are associated with increased risk of developing coronary disease. In addition to niacin, a typical diet generally recommended by orthomolecular physicians will tend to keep cholesterol levels down in most people. This diet can be described as a high fiber, sugar-free diet which is rich in complex polysaccharides such as vegetables and whole grains.

With adequately high doses of niacin, it is possible to lower cholesterol levels even with no alteration in diet. E. Boyle, then working with the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., quickly became interested in niacin. He began to follow a series of patients using 3 grams (3,000 milligrams) of niacin per day. He reported his conclusions in a document prepared for physicians involved in Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill W (1968). In this report, Boyle reported that he had kept 160 coronary patients on niacin for ten years. Only six died, against a statistical expectation that 62 would have died with conventional care. He stated, "From the strictly medical viewpoint I believe all patients taking niacin would survive longer and enjoy life much more." His prediction came true when the National Coronary Drug Study was evaluated by Canner recently. But Boyle's data spoke for itself. Continuous use of niacin will decrease mortality and prolong life. Continue reading >>

Vitamin Supplementation Prevents Anorexia

(OMNS February 9, 2008) Anorexia is primarily due to vitamin deficiency. Approximately one in twenty teenage girls in America is struggling with an eating disorder. Parents can help eliminate the risk of anorexia by providing their children with vitamin supplements.

Anorexia is an acknowledged clinical marker of beriberi, the disease specifically caused by a deficiency of vitamin B1 (thiamine). [1] Anorexia is also commonly observed as an early symptom of pellagra (niacin deficiency) [2] and is a known complication of scurvy, vitamin C deficiency. [3] Prevention is especially important, because beriberi/anorexia often does not respond well even to treatment with high doses of thiamine for months, and sometimes does not respond at all. [1] But as a rule, high potency vitamin supplements are an effective cure for the loss of muscle mass caused by beriberi and the skin lesions caused by pellagra.

The vitamin B1 in almost every multivitamin and B-complex vitamin pill is either thiamine mononitrate or thiamine hydrochloride. The body’s ability to absorb these two forms of thiamine is limited [4] by the maximum amount that can be handled by the body’s two specialized thiamine transport proteins. [5]. This means many doses per day of oral thiamine are necessary for effective treatment. Another class of thiamine molecules, called allithiamines, are much better absorbed. [6] Since allithiamines are not included in standard multivitamin preparations, we recommend their reformulation to include this specific form of B1.

The conventional medical approach to eating disorders such as anorexia typically includes psychological/behavioral treatment, medication, and food-groups dietetics. It is surprisingly rare for physicians to link eating disorders with vitamin deficiency, and few doctors recommend vitamin supplements for prevention. Continue the full article

Orthomolecular treatment of anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders are life altering psychiatric conditions that severely impair the quality of life of those suffering from them. They are the most common psychiatric disorders in the United States, (1) and are characterized by numerous somatic symptoms, such as facial flushing, hyperhydrosis (excessive sweating), muscle tension, paresthesias (numbness and tingling), shallow breathing, syncope (fainting), and tachycardia (rapid heart rate).

The emotional symptoms of anxiety disorders occur simultaneously with the somatic ones and include agitation, derealization (feelings of unreality), fearfulness, feelings of impending doom, irritability, nervousness, and shyness. Patients with anxiety disorders often report escape and avoidance behaviors that merely reinforce and perpetuate their ongoing anxiety.

They also tend to engage in catastrophic thinking by over-predicting the negative consequences of events. (2) Patients tend to misinterpret benign bodily sensations as warning signals for more serious conditions. For example, heart palpitations are common among the anxiety sufferers, yet this symptom is often misinterpreted as being a heart attack.

Anxiety sufferers desperately want their anxiety to go away, but they cannot control it. What these patients suffer from is a heightened autonomic nervous system (ANS) reaction to a perceived threat. There might even be some link between the anxiety of modern times and the lifesaving mechanism that was required of our prehistoric ancestors. (3)

For example, when the early hominids had to hunt and kill to feed themselves, they had to mobilize and react to real threats to their survival. By contrast, the anxiety sufferer of today manifests the same mobilization as if fleeing from a predator, but this mobilization is out of proportion to the actual threat. In some of us, anxiety might actually be built into our genes.

Evolution might favor those who have anxiety because it makes sense to have a built-in system that ensures survival. (3) Is it better to have a system that gives more false positives then false negatives? The advantage might be survival, but at a tremendous cost to the sufferer due to a lifetime of discomfort (Table 1).

Even with the unfortunate reality that anxiety might "live in" the genes of those susceptible to it, patients do not have to endure a lifetime of suffering. Anxiety sufferers want viable treatment options that can lessen their anxiety and improve their quality of life. An orthomolecular approach does just that--it is simple, effective, reduces the somatic and emotional symptoms of anxiety, and dramatically improves quality of life. The first part of this report will focus on the diagnosis of anxiety disorders. The second part will examine orthomolecular treatment strategies and will include case reports demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach.

Diagnosing Anxiety Disorders

To diagnose anxiety disorders it is necessary to first rule out organic causes before a psychiatric diagnosis can be made. Certain questions should be posed during the history when evaluating the anxious patient for organic causes (Table 2).

Once a thorough history has been obtained the diagnostic work-up involves various tests depending on the nature of the anxiety. (8) If the anxiety was found to be intermittent, it might be necessary to perform a wake-and-sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) and possibly a computed tomography (CT) scan to rule out a cerebral tumor. In addition, the work-up might require a 24-hour urine collection for catecholamines (to rule-out pheochromocytoma) or a 24-hour Holter monitor (to rule-out paroxysmal cardiac arrhythmia). If the anxiety is more constant than intermittent, the work-up involves other tests such as a thyroid panel (to rule-out hyperthyroidism), a drug screen, and an EEG. In cases of chronic anxiety, a 24-hour Holter monitor might also be helpful.

When the work-up does not reveal an organic cause, or when the history strongly indicates a non-organic cause of anxiety, a psychiatric diagnosis needs to be considered. Anxiety disorders are classified into various categories such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder (PD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and social phobia/social anxiety disorder (SAD). (9) See Table 3 for a brief description of the main types of anxiety disorders. To make an appropriate psychiatric diagnosis, it is necessary that certain criteria be met for the anxiety disorder being considered.

Orthomolecular Treatment Strategy #1: Niacinamide (Nicotinamide)
The main treatment approach for anxiety disorders is to use a high enough dose of certain nutrients to diminish the ANS reaction, eliminate the fear of anxiety symptoms, decrease the cycle of avoidance and anxiety, and improve quality of life. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this is through the use of the amide of niacin (nicotinic acid) known as niacinamide (nicotinamide).

This B-vitamin has remarkable therapeutic benefits for those suffering from anxiety. In a recent report, a review of the literature was undertaken to determine the biological mechanism for niacinamide's anxiolytic effects. (10) It appears that niacinamide has therapeutic effects comparable to the benzodiazepines, a class of medications commonly used for GAD, PD, and SAD. (11) Benzodiazepine medications bind to a macromolecular complex that is found within the central nervous system (CNS), referred to as the GABA (gammaaminobutyric acid) benzodiazepine receptor-chloride ion channel complex. (12) When benzodiazepines bind onto or near this macromolecular complex they potentiate GABA-ergic synaptic inhibition through membrane hyperpolarization, thus enhancing the conductance of the chloride ion by increasing the frequency of channel-opening events. (12)

The net result is the reduction of anxiety and related symptoms via the diminution of neurotransmission (e.g., neuronal firing) among many brain regions such as the spinal cord, hypothalamus, hippocampus, substantia nigra, cerebellar cortex, and cerebral cortex. (12)

more information:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_259-260/ai_n12417487