http://www.edgarcayce.org/health/database/...hizophrenia.asp
EDGAR CAYCE'S PERSPECTIVE ON SCHIZOPHRENIA

Edgar Cayce gave many psychic readings for persons suffering from schizophrenia. Actually, he never used the term "schizophrenia." During his era, the accepted medical diagnosis for the illness was "dementia praecox." Dementia refers to organic brain degeneration, resulting in cognitive deficits and psychosis. Praecox refers to the precocious or early onset of the illness (usually in the late teens or early twenties).

Cayce provided graphic descriptions of the brain deterioration in persons suffering from schizophrenia and recommended treatments for regenerating the nervous system. He also acknowledged the mental and spiritual aspects of the disorder.

Cayce's psychic readings cite numerous causal factors. In some cases, hereditary factors are noted. Physical trauma (such as injury to the nervous system during birth or later in life) was a major causal factor. Glandular disturbances were often linked to the nervous system pathology. Toxicity in the body was sometimes described as contributing to the illness.

The treatments suggested by Cayce were typical for cases involving nervous system incoordination. Osteopathic treatment was one of the most frequent recommendations. Other common recommendations included: electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, suggestive therapeutics, companion therapy, and therapeutic milieu (environment).

The following points summarize Edgar Cayce's perspective on schizophrenia.

1. The diagnostic label of "schizophrenia" refers to a group of related illnesses with varied etiologies and outcome.
2. There is a strong somatic (biological) component to this disorder which must be addressed in treatment.
3. The symptoms of schizophrenia result from dysfunction within the brain, but etiological patterns usually involve systemic dysfunction.
4. Within the physical body, multiple systems are usually involved in the schizophrenic process, primarily the central (cerebrospinal) and autonomic (sympathetic) nervous systems, and the endocrine (glandular) system.
5. In cases where the disorder progresses to a chronic condition, the prognosis is less favorable. This condition involves brain degeneration and is a difficult process to reverse. Early diagnosis and treatment greatly improve the prognosis.
6. Genetic factors often play a significant role in the development of schizophrenia. Genetic factors are not simplistic entities, but vary in influence from being "innate" (very likely to manifest regardless of other factors) to being only "tendencies" (i.e., inherited vulnerability as proposed in the diathesis/stress model).
7. Pregnancy and birth complications (PBCs) play a significant role in the etiology of schizophrenia.
8. Spinal injury and other forms of somatic dysfunction are important etiological factors in the production of psychotic symptoms.
9. Stress is often an important etiological factor in the production of schizophrenic symptoms.
10. The human body contains interfaces with spiritual and mental dimensions of reality. These interfaces (centers) exist within the glandular and nervous systems. Chemical imbalances or injury to these systems can disrupt these centers, producing the psychotic symptoms associated with schizophrenia.
11. The treatment of schizophrenia requires a holistic perspective which typically involves spiritual, mental, and physical interventions. These therapies include osteopathic or chiropractic treatments, massage, electrotherapy, diet, companionship, therapeutic milieu, hypnotic suggestion, exercise, and pharmacology.
12. Cayce's holistic perspective involves spiritual and metaphysical constructs, such as karma and spirit possession. These transpersonal aspects are not cited in every case, and thus may be most appropriately viewed as complications of the pathological process rather than specific to schizophrenia.

THE TREATMENT OF SCHIZOPHPRENIA

In keeping with the holistic philosophy of the Edgar Cayce readings, the following is a therapeutic model which addresses the dimensions of body, mind and spirit. In the simplest possible conceptualization, this approach can be represented as:

1. Establish a therapeutic milieu with an emphasis on "spiritual" qualities, such as patience, gentleness, altruistic service, etc., while simultaneously providing opportunities for growth and development. Outdoor activities in the sunshine and fresh air are also emphasized. Companion therapy is sometimes necessary to implement and maintain a therapeutic milieu.
2. Provide somatic (physical) interventions which address the fundamental physical dimension of this disorder. Manual medicine (such as osteopathy, chiropractic and massage), electrotherapy (including vibratory metals), diet, exercise, and appropriate pharmacology play a crucial role in the physical treatment of schizophrenia.
3. Utilize suggestive therapeutics to rebuild and redirect the mental processes of the client. Various cognitive and behavioral techniques are employed in conjunction with naturalistic hypnosis so as to apply the principle "mind is the builder."

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFi...n1/anorexia.xml
Attempts have been made to link anorexia nervosa to religion. In Germany, a correlation was found between type of eating disorder and religious affiliation. Protestants had a higher incidence of anorexia nervosa while Roman Catholics presented with bulimia with vomiting [ 11 ]. Rates of eating disorders for Muslim countries are not widely available, but there is evidence that cases of anorexia nervosa, though rare, do exist in these countries. Yager & Smith [ 12 ] presented a case of restrictor anorexia nervosa in Pakistan. The disorder had developed due to the patient and her family having a preoccupation with weight. In a later study, [ 13 ], 180 female nursing and medical students at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi were assessed for anorexic behaviour and attitude. Total proportion of anorexic behaviour was 21.7% which was recognized by the authors as much higher than rates reported for studies conducted in Asia.

Huline-Dickens [ 14 ] has examined the religious and ascetic features of anorexia nervosa. It is argued that there exists many connections between the religious ascetic and the anorexic, and that there are many psychopathological features common to both. Whilst empirical evidence for religious themes in anorexia is not strong, in the family therapy literature there are indications of ethical codes of sacrifice, loyalty and sexual denial. Anorexia and asceticism are considered to be connected conceptually in the process of idealization. Clinicians working with women with anorexia have pointed out their abstinence from worldly comfort and pleasures through the process of self-denial, heightened morality, asexuality and immortality [ 15 ].

Other researchers have attempted to link anorexia nervosa to sociocultural factors

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8045047/
Pro-anorexia movement has cult-like appeal
Experts alarmed by Web sites that promote self-starvation

CHICAGO - They call her “Ana.” She is a role model to some, a goddess to others — the subject of drawings, prayers and even a creed.

She tells them what to eat and mocks them when they don’t lose weight. And yet, while she is a very real presence in the lives of many of her followers, she exists only in their minds.

Ana is short for anorexia, and — to the alarm of experts — many who suffer from the potentially fatal eating disorder are part of an underground movement that promotes self-starvation and, in some cases, has an almost cult-like appeal.
Followers include young women and teens who wear red Ana bracelets and offer one another encouraging words of “thinspiration” on Web pages and blogs.

They share tips for shedding pounds and faithfully report their “cw” and “gw” — current weight and goal weight, which often falls into the double digits. They also post pictures of celebrity role models, including teen stars Lindsay Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen, who last year set aside the acting career and merchandising empire she shares with her twin sister to seek help for her own eating disorder.

“Put on your Ana bracelet and raise your skinny fist in solidarity!” one “pro-Ana” blogger wrote shortly after Olsen entered treatment.

Religion and eating disorder
anorexia nervosa as holy, pure and good, whereas bingeing and purging. is weak and evil. ... the relationship between religion and eating disorders.

http://www.something-fishy.org/cultural/themedia.php

From early-on children are taught by society that their looks matter. Think of the three and four year old who is continuously praised for being "oh so cute". With an increased population of children who spend a lot of time in front of television, there are more of them coming up with a superficial sense of who they are. Images on T.V. spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful, buy more stuff because people will like us and we'll be better people for it. Programming on the tube rarely depicts men and women with "average" body-types or crappy clothes, ingraining in the back of all our minds that this is the type of life we want. Overweight characters are typically portrayed as lazy, the one with no friends, or "the bad guy", while thin women and pumped-up men are the successful, popular, sexy and powerful ones. How can we tell our children that it's what's inside that counts, when the media continuously contradicts this message?

Super models in all the popular magazines have continued to get thinner and thinner. Modeling agencies have been reported to actively pursue Anorexic models. The average woman model weighs up to 25% less than the typical woman and maintains a weight at about 15 to 20 percent below what is considered healthy for her age and height. Some models go through plastic surgery, some are "taped-up" to mold their bodies into more photogenic representations of themselves, and photos are airbrushed before going to print. By far, these body types and images are not the norm and unobtainable to the average individual, and far and wide, the constant force of these images on society makes us believe they should be. We need to remind ourselves and each other constantly (especially children) that these images are fake.

Diet advertisements are another problem. On television, in magazines and newspapers, we are continually exposed to the notion that losing weight will make us happier and it will be through "THIS diet plan". Time and time again it has been proven that, for the long-term, regimented diet plans DO NOT work, yet our society continues to buy into the idea that they do. Pop-culture's imposed definition of "the ideal body" combined with the diet industry's drive to make more money, creates a never-ending cycle of ad upon ad that try to convince us "...if you lose weight, your life will be good." The flip side is that as long as we continue to buy into their false claims by purchasing these (often dangerous) products, the more the diet industry will keep pushing their slogans at us.

From the About-Face organization: "400-600 advertisements bombard us everyday in magazines, on billboards, on tv, and in newspapers. One in eleven has a direct message about beauty, not even counting the indirect messages."

While all of these images, advertisements, and messages may be counterproductive to a good self-image, and society's
overall acceptance of each person's different size and shape, they are NOT the reason so many men and women develop an Eating Disorder. These images may not help, and for those already open to the possibility of negative coping mechanisms and/or mental illness, the media may play a small contributing role -- but ultimately, if a young man or woman's life situation, environment, and/or genetics leave them open to an Eating Disorder (or alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, OCD, etc.), they will still end up in the same place regardless of television or magazines. Ultimately it's important to know that Anorexia, Bulimia and Compulsive Overeating are NOT about weight and food. Rather they are complex disorders where each sufferer is plagued with low self-esteem, an inability to cope with their own emotions and stress, and many underlying issues that have lead them to their disordered eating.

http://www.escape-from-anorexia.com/Outwit...e%20illness.htm
Interestingly enough, Helen’s dietician also characterised the anorexia to Helen as a sort of demon which had taken possession of her. She described it to Helen as a goblin which sat on her shoulder and whispered lies to her. Furthermore, Helen described it as a voice inside her head which constantly undermined her self-esteem and will to live. She felt crushed between the constant dictates of this voice and the equally demanding dictates of Fiona and myself. The anorexia, of course, had a number of months start on us and had been winning Helen’s mind over long before I even knew there was anything amiss. There was a well established relationship between them by this time.

Helen’s psychiatrist was particularly interested in this aspect of her illness and wanted to know if her sleeping pattern had become disturbed. He was surprised at how well she was sleeping. I wasn’t - I knew how hard we were exercising!

However we viewed the condition - illness or entity - the point was that we had to do battle with a very subtle and cunning thought process which would deliberately set out to delude and deceive us. And if we were not able to see through all of its charades and subterfuges, then we would have lost Helen.

We set out to outwit the anorexia by creating structures which appeared to offer concessions to it but which were really designed to break its iron grip on Helen. To outwit the anorexia, we had, of course, to outwit its host - Helen.

Richard Maisel, David Epston, and Ali Borden demonstrate the ways in which anorexia and bulimia (which they consider two halves of the same coin, hence their preferred term "anorexia/bulimia," or "a/b") is caused and maintained by powerful but hidden pro-anorexia rhetoric. By carefully listening to hundreds of patients, the authors discovered that after insinuating itself into people's lives through the weight-obsessed lingo of the media, anorexia goes on to generate an endless supply of pro-anorexia rhetoric that mutates into sophisticated new forms whenever it confronts anti-anorexia resistance. For example, this rhetoric instantly offers myriad convincing reasons why the doctor pointing out the harmfulness of self-starvation is not to be trusted. The sufferer experiences toxic pro-anorexia thoughts not as alien or unwanted but as reality. Anorexic thoughts proliferate and come to dominate a person's thinking and actions, leading her to lose touch with her own values, her identity, and her relationships.

I never suffered anorexia but I did suffer from bulimia for years...
one of the theories that I know apply to me and many others is basicalyl what the individual is doing...
is they are subconsiously trying to control something.
Usually the reason they turn to controlling their bodies in and extreme form is not really due to a 'weight' issue.
In alot of instances the individual was a victim of sexual abuse, a violent household, rape, traumatic events in their lifes (prior to the "disease"), etc etc you get the idea...

Due to whatever horrors this person expierenced they lost a sense of control..
control of their bodies, minds, life, etc...

In their minds the one thing they can control is their body ...
Therefor they starve themselfs or bing and purge or in some instances chronically over eat in an attempt to fix a different issue. Granted it will never be able to fix, stop or erase what initially lit the fire. But many times they are unaware of what originally caused this obsession.

when you think of it it's really pretty sad. That someone can be violated so badly that they only way they can subconsiously think to "fix" it is to go to extreme ways to change their bodies... since they feel that they're lifes are unchangeable.

Yes, I agree with you regarding the control bit. In my opinion that is so true.

I do know somebody who has anorexia, they have at last admitted it and I guess that means they are halfway to helping themselves recover (keeping my fingers crossed!)

I wonder if is possible for anorexics to take the control the other way? ie Once they have accepted they have a disorder, realize that the control they think they may lose once they start eating properly again can actually be turned around and by "controlling" their eating habits by eating food that is nourishing and will sustain them and bring their weight to a correct level. This way they will still feel in control but will be healthy?

I feel very much for people suffering from Eating Disorders. So many that have never had any dealings with it just turn around and say "well, just eat!" Unfortunately, that isn't always possible, the mind can be a very powerful weapon - for or against itself.

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7120564.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7120564.stm</a>





Last Updated: Sunday, 2 December 2007, 06:58 GMT
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Anorexia visible with brain scans
eating
An estimated 1m people in the UK have an eating disorder
Sophisticated scans have revealed the eating disorder anorexia is linked to specific patterns of brain activity.

Even young women recovering from anorexia who have maintained a healthy weight for over a year had vastly different brain activity patterns.

The findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry point to a brain region linked to anxiety and perfectionism.

The University of Pittsburgh authors said the understanding might help with the development of new treatments.

The work could also explain why people with anorexia nervosa are able to deny themselves food.


This demonstrates how complex eating disorders are...they should be treated as a serious mental illness and not a silly diet gone wrong
A spokeswoman from the eating disorders association "beat"

'Dieting ruined my health'

It is estimated that one in 100 women between the ages of 15 and 30 has anorexia.

The main symptom is the relentless pursuit of thinness through self-starvation. This may become so extreme that it is life-threatening.

Dr Walter Kaye and his team studied 13 women who were recovering from anorexia and 13 healthy women.

The women were asked to play a computer quiz where correct guesses were rewarded financially.

At the same time, the researchers observed what was going on inside the mind using a type of brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Worriers and perfectionists

During the game, brain regions lit up in different ways for the two groups of women.

While the brain region for emotional responses - the anterior ventral striatum - showed strong differences for winning and losing the game in the healthy women, women with a past history of anorexia showed little difference between winning and losing.

Dr Kaye said that, in anorexia, this might impact on food enjoyment.

"For anorexics, then, perhaps it is difficult to appreciate immediate pleasure if it does not feel much different from a negative experience," said Dr Kaye.

Another brain area, called the caudate, which is involved in linking actions to outcome and planning, was far more active in the women with a history of anorexia compared to the control group.

The anorexia group tended to have exaggerated and obsessive worry about the consequences of their behaviours, looked for rules where there were none and were overly concerned about making mistakes, said Dr Kaye.

He said: "There are some positive aspects to this kind of temperament. Paying attention to detail and making sure things are done as correctly as possible are constructive traits in careers such as medicine or engineering."

But carried to extremes, such obsessive thinking can be harmful, he said.

Dr Ian Frampton of Exeter University, who has himself been conducting MRI studies in patients with anorexia, said: "This shows how the brain might be important in eating disorders.

"There may be networks in the brain that make someone vulnerable to developing an eating disorder."

Establishing a neurobiological cause might help remove some of the blame and stigma that surrounds conditions like anorexia, he said.

A spokeswoman from the eating disorders association "beat" said: "This demonstrates how complex eating disorders are and underlines that they should be treated as a serious mental illness and not a silly diet gone wrong."

Aren't we confusing mind and brain ?

I don't quite get what you mean.

In my opinion and from what I have seen in real life regarding Anorexia, it is indeed all to do with control. I was wondering in my previous post if there was some way the anorexic concerned could somehow change their way of thinking and so help themselves recover.

Anorexia isn't just a question of suddenly starting to eat, it is an extremely complex illness and one from which some people do not recover.

A part of the mind is taking control.. by creating negative thoughts.. twisting all the persons experiences ..blaming the person.....weakening the individuals power..strength.. with debilitating mind chat...

The thinner ,the weaker the person gets.. the stronger the negative mind.. as the body..and brain are barely fed nutritionally ..so rationality goes...

it can become as debilitating like an addiction.. eg drugs..

Biochemically they become out of whack... rationality goes..


It is a very misunderstood disease..

Ahh right, I see what you mean.

Yes, it is a very misunderstood illness indeed.

It can become a complete obsession, every waking thought goes to how many calories are being eaten and how to burn it all off as quickly as possible.

Ironically, it is very common for anorexics to spend hours upon hours partaking in strenuous exercise - this is until they end up collapsing - not enough fuel.

yes they see exercising as cleansing.. .. as a regulator of energy.. or punisher for eating...

Athletes with their hard training and strict low fat diets too can become eating disordered.. as the biochemical balance can change very suddenly in these cases.. especially if their trainers didn't accommodate the calories required for fighting illnesses.. viruses... or any other activity they may participate in... the pressure to perform...for the team.. all those that assisted them.. their own personal expectations...

The personality of the athlete... would they go by the book the set rules.. or allow themselves some leeway???

Would they see tiredness/exhaustion as lack of fitness or need for more rest or nutrition???

<a href="http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...2-23272,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...2-23272,00.html</a>
A DAD'S relationship with his daughter may influence whether or not she will develop an eating disorder, Australian researchers have found.

Girls whose fathers exerted tight control over them were more likely to develop anorexia nervosa, while low levels of paternal care increased the risk of both anorexia and bulimia nervosa, but to a lesser degree, Dr Tracey D. Wade of Flinders University in Adelaide and colleagues found.

On the other hand, high parental expectations, usually thought of as a risk factor for anorexia, actually weren't related to the eating disorder in the researchers' analysis. However, they found, such expectations did predispose girls to developing bulimia.

These findings are reported in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

<a href="http://www.proactivechange.com/motivation/...ts/positive.htm" target="_blank">http://www.proactivechange.com/motivation/...ts/positive.htm</a>


The process I am going to outline is similar to how you’d handle communication with another person. You listen to what the other person is saying, you do your best to understand where this person is coming from, and you tailor your arguments to address this person’s concerns. Needless to say, you don’t just pay attention to the words themselves, you also pay attention to the emotional undertones of the discussion.

So, how do you apply this when you have negative thoughts?

Normally, you would tense up and tell yourself “Don’t go there. This is dangerous territory. Think positive!”. Instead, I’m inviting you to acknowledge the negative thought: “I believe I cannot do it”.

Does this mean I’m inviting you to give up? No. It’s a fact that you believe you can’t do it… But it is not a fact that you actually cannot do it. Think about it. Ask yourself: What is behind your belief? Is there concrete, foolproof evidence that you can’t do it? Or is this the voice of fear?

Chances are what you’re hearing is the voice of fear: “I want to do this, but I’m so afraid I’ll fail that I’m convinced I won’t be able do it”.

Let’s see what’s happening now that we’ve recast the negative thought as fear. Maybe you feel bad about being afraid? So let me reframe this. You would not be afraid if you were sticking to what feels safe to you. Being afraid is a sign that you’re daring to venture out of your comfort zone. You are taking a risk. It is normal to feel fear when taking a risk.

Notice how things are subtly changing. I’m inviting you to see the negative thought as a sign of fear, which is a symptom that you are taking a risk. Hopefully, this makes you feel more positive about yourself (a risk-taker) as well as more understanding of the fear that is behind the negative thought.

“But”, you say “this is ridiculous. I shouldn’t be afraid of something like this”. Whether or not you should be afraid, the fact is you are. You’re better off facing reality: You’ll be better able to deal with it.

Dealing with fear does not mean being cowed by it. You can acknowledge the fear, respect it… and still decide to go ahead! “I want to do this, I’m afraid, but I still decide to do it anyway”.

If you’re able to accomplish what you wanted despite the fear, it will be a great victory. You will have experienced how misleading your fear can be, and how it can distort your perceptions of what you can do.

But what if you go ahead despite the fear, and are not able to accomplish what you wanted? In a sense, you will have failed. But you will also have accomplished something positive. Having acknowledged your fear, you consciously decided to confront it. This, in itself, is a victory—and a good practice for future challenges.

I hope this article inspires you to see your negative thoughts in a different light—not as stumbling blocks, but as a springboard for consciously stretching your comfort zone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement
INTERVOICE is supported by people who hear voices, relative and friends and mental health professionals including nurses, psychiatrists and psychologists. INTERVOICE members assert that the most important factor in the success of their approach is the importance placed on the personal engagement of the people involved, meaning that all participants are considered an expert of their own experience. They see each other first as people, secondly as equal partners and thirdly as all having different but mutually valuable expertise to offer. This can either be through direct experience of hearing voices or having worked with voice hearers (and/or wanting to).

INTERVOICE is critical of psychiatry in relation to the way the profession generally understands and treats people who hear voices and holds that their research has led them to the position that schizophrenia is an unscientific and unhelpful hypothesis which should be abandoned, (Romme, 2006).

The Hearing Voices movement regards itelf as being a post-psychiatric, (Bracken, 2005 and Stastny/Peter Lehmann, 2007) organisation, positioning itself outside of the mental health world in recognition that voices, in their view, are an aspect of human differentness, rather than a mental health problem and that, as with homosexuality (also regarded by psychiatry in recent times as an illness), one of the main issues is about human rights. Therefore by changing the way society perceives the experience, they believe, psychiatry, as it did with homosexuality, will follow.

The Hearing Voices movement is also seeking more holistic health solutions to problematic and overwhelming voices that cause mental distress then what it regards as the generally reductionist, disease based model offered by mainstream psychiatry. Based on their research they hold the opinion that many people successfully live with their voices and that in themselves voices are not the problem. For this reason they are prepared to accept a range of explanations offered by people who hear voices including spiritual ones and assert that recovery (see recovery model) from overwhelming voices can be achieved by seeking to understand the meaning of the voices to the voice hearer.

A detailed and neutral account of the significance of the Hearing Voice Movement entitled "Can You Live With the Voices in Your Head?" was published in the New York Times Magazine in 2007, the author Daniel B. Smith noted that the movements "brief against psychiatry can be boiled down to two core positions. The first is that many more people hear voices, and hear many more kinds of voices, than is usually assumed. The second is that auditory hallucination — or “voice-hearing,” H.V.N.’s more neutral preference — should be thought of not as a pathological phenomenon in need of eradication but as a meaningful, interpretable experience, intimately linked to a hearer’s life story and, more commonly than not, to unresolved personal traumas."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5346930.stm
Hearing voices in your head is so common that it is normal, psychologists believe.

Dutch findings suggest one in 25 people regularly hears voices.

Contrary to traditional belief, hearing voices is not necessarily a symptom of mental illness, UK researchers at Manchester University say.

Indeed, many who hear voices do not seek help and say the voices have a positive impact on their lives, comforting or inspiring them.

Human diversity

Researcher Aylish Campbell said: "We know that many members of the general population hear voices but have never felt the need to access mental health services.

"Some experts even claim that more people hear voices and don't seek psychiatric help than those who do."

Some who hear voices describe it as being like the experience of hearing someone call your name only to find that there is no one there.


It doesn't seem to be hearing voices in itself that causes the problem
Researcher Aylish Campbell

"I learned to live with voices"

People also hear voices as if they are thoughts entering the mind from somewhere outside themselves. They will have no idea what the voice might say. It may even engage in conversation.

The Manchester team want to investigate why some people view their voices positively while others become distressed and seek medical help.

<a href="http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/" target="_blank">http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/</a>

75 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
(Visual Illusion · Optische Täuschung)
by Michael Bach

These pages demonstrate visual phenomena, and »optical« or »visual illusions«. The latter is more appropriate, because most effects have their basis in the visual pathway, not in the optics of the eye. When I find the time I will expand the explanations, to the degree that these phenomena are really understood; any nice and thoughtful comment welcome.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes...g_summary.shtml

The synaesthete in all of us
Two synaesthetes seldom agree on the colours or tastes they experience. While Covent Garden may taste of crinkly chocolate to James, it's very unlikely to have the same taste for another synaesthete. And Dorothy's brother Peter, also a synaesthete, won't see M or Z in the same colour as she does. But despite these differences, scientists are now beginning to discover more and more overarching synaesthetic patterns.

Dorothy doesn't only see letters and numbers in colour. Music produces a riot of colour, too. As Dorothy hears notes going from low to high, her colours change from black and purple to mid-browns and then yellows and whites. Overall, lower notes evoke darker colours and higher notes brighter colours - and this pattern is true for most synaesthetes.

But surprisingly, when non-synaesthetes are asked to match colours and music, they show a similar pattern. Most of us seem to associate low notes with darker colours and high notes with brighter colours.

The evidence of the synaesthete in all of us doesn't end here. Another clue comes from the way we manipulate numbers. More than half of all synaesthetes who see coloured numbers also experience their numbers arranged in space around them. Heather Birt is such a synaesthete, and she's followed by a stream of numbers wherever she goes.

Recently, scientists started to investigate how non-synaesthetes deal with numbers. They found they're better at manipulating small numbers with their left hand, and their bigger numbers with our right hand. This suggests that we all somehow think of numbers as arranged in space, even if we're not aware of it. More evidence, it seems, that we're all synaesthetic to some degree. It's just that some people experience a more exaggerated version.

The present way is to see anorexia as a disease.. separate it from the person.. call it the negative mind...

That way the sufferer can learn to separate him/herself from these thoughts..look at them from another perspective..and even draw a chart of the thoughts that they have... which are real..belong to the individual... and positive... and which thoughts are of the negative mind...that do not benefit the individual... which is the anorexia... the eating disorder...

It gives them a base to work from... it helps gives the person the strength to fight this illness back... by recognizing it as separate part of their mind... that is has been altered.. hurt by some past or accumulated stress..

Once they learn to separate oneself from the anorexia.. or binge purge... eating disorder..

learn how it's controlling it's thoughts... one can anticipate situations... rethink how one used to behave/react in any situation...and how it has now changed..

so that they can see whether or how their sudden reaction thought processes to any event is triggered by the eating disorder..( the anorexia/binge/bullimia negative mind..)..and learn to try to control /rethink their present responses...

(

Archive of Resistance:Anti-anorexia/anti-bulimia




http://www.narrativeapproaches.com/antiano...rexia_index.htm



This web-site intends to provide a response to the question that has been at the very heart of its inquiries - 'why are so many of the 'concentration camps' of anorexia invisible to their inmates, despite the slave labouring and death marches, let alone the rest of us who stand by seemingly unaware?'



But just look carefully around on those pleasant sunny afternoons. Wander through city parks and you will see them kitted out in $250 Nike triathelete running shoes and the latest in fashion gym-wear with designer logos emblazoned along the stripe running the length of their track-pants and across bulky sweat shirts. Perhaps you wonder about their leg and arm warmers. But if you dare, look into the eyes of these torture-cizers. To this question - 'Can you tell the different between a woman exercising and torture-cizing at your gym? -no anti-anorexic veteran has any difficulty whatsoever discerning one from the other. They say - 'It's all in their eyes. The pain on their faces!'
Anti-anorexia allows us, if we listen carefully, to not only hear what anorexia has to say but how it says it. However it does not tell us exactly what we are hearing. That is for all of us to find out. There are some questions that might guide our enquiries. For example, what sense can we make of the fact that anorexia speaks so convincingly to so many young women (and some men) in so many places around the world? And why some places and not others? Anorexia's ubiquity is ironic when you learn that it provides so many with reassurances, fondly whispered, such as 'You are the only one' 'You are so special to me!'. Claiming that anorexia is so widespread in no way denies it capacity to find almost any young woman's Achilles hell.



How does anorexia enter a young woman's life, impersonate her for a period of time before becoming her ventriloquist? What is so frightening is that the words coming out of their mouths in any number of mother tongues is so much the same. For such reasons, shouldn't we we then concern ourselves about what is this 'power' that is pulling so many strings on so many lives? And furthermore, how does such 'power' spin so many deadly webs than entangle so many young lives, bleeding them of hope so that nothing but their annihilation is imaginable? How does Anorexia conceal itself so that it can proceed without much resistance to speak of or without almost any public outcry? We know all too well that executioners keep their faces well hidden. But anorexia's 'power' is far more treacherous, so insidious in fact that it has young women torture and violate themselves while it remains in the shadows of their lives surveilling them. Anorexia not only claims its innocence but goes further than this. It now promises these young women the means to escape the very web in which it has ensnared them. They are told that a strict adherence to anorexia's regime of rules and regulations will 'set you free' "You are not to put a foot out of (my) line!" "If you do what I say, you will be richly rewarded by your heart's desires" "If you fail, you will deserve what you get and get what you deserve!" They are soon to learn that they can never satisfy Anorexia and they are now on a 'diet to death'. Each and every attempt to reach the anorexic standard and their inevitable failure to do so unwittingly tangles them further into the web. And the web now starts closing in on them, slowly but surely squeezing the life out of them.



Anorexic torture is applied with exquisite psychological sophistication and a cruel professionalism. Nowhere does it apply brute force, dismemberments or public spectacles so typical of tyrannical powers. Rather anorexia acts not by deed, but by incitement, invisible to be sure but audible. It has a voice that speaks with such guile, authority and finally inspiring such fear that young women are gagged and silenced. To its very 'voice' we turn to find it out and it reveals a great deal.



The 'torturer's 'voice' is beguiling by speaking both as the 'good guy' and the 'bad' guy'. Such tactics are well known where the intention is to break the 'will and the body. The 'good guy' is so obsequious and flattering, promising glittering prizes, perfect happiness and superiority. Such promises will be delivered when these young women relinquish themselves - mind, body and spirit - and become obedient and docile. The 'bad guy' doesn't administer punishments but has these young women inflict them upon themselves. What is withheld, although it cannot be kept forever, is that such a submission entails signing their own death warrant.



For all intents and purposes, it has these young women execute themselves. Their death certificates will show 'drug overdoes...no suspicious circumstances...no police investigation warranted', 'heart failure' which omits that the deceased was required to do thousands of push-ups daily or frantically run-on-the-spot as if her life depended on it, or a 'diagnosis of anorexia nervosa' which has good standing in the DSM-4 as a psychiatric disease with a long history. The 'good guy' charms, courts and beguiles whereas the 'bad guy' vilifies, insults and intimidates. The 'good guy' does not persist for long. Once the young woman is deceived and walks innocently into the snare, this 'voice' becomes less frequently heard and far less audible when it does speak.



If we were unaware of this, how could we possibly understand why women 'run' themselves into their early graves? How could we fathom how these young women are so uninterested and seemingly deaf to our 'treatments' and wise counsel as to their physical deterioration? How else can we grasp what seems like a secret lovers' pact that excludes from their lives all those who care about and love them? And should we try to intervene, how do we respond when our well-meaning attempts are met with violence, both verbal or physical? And what do we do with our observations that such violence is so out of character as to seem to be a form of madness? How is the 'voice' of anorexia so deafening in their ears but we cannot hear it and are bystanders to such infamy?



Another order of inquiry has us consider - if we do speak out, are we so sure we do not speak in Anorexia's favour? For example, if we call someone 'an anorexic', are we unwittingly complicit with Anorexia's sinister purpose to cast these young women out of the human fold? Why are those terms of self-reproach, otherwise quaint and old-fashioned, so commonplace amongst those taken in by anorexia - 'I am worthless', 'I am unworthy', etc. If we, in our speaking, disease them, are we collaborating with Anorexia? Must we guard ourselves against arrogance, thinking it is only they who are being taken in by Anorexia? What guarantee do we have of our immunity? Could we be complicit without even realizing it? Could we perfidiously betray them without even any second thoughts?



After all, anorexia is everywhere and nowhere in the Western world and right now is very likely following in the wake of MacDonalds as it blazes its trail through the former communist empire. Do we have to know how anorexia operates before we can even offer an informed opinion? And must we do something soon? After all, "more cases of anorexia and bulimia are reported every year, and between 5% and 10% of females 14 and over, suffer from such disorders, according to the no-profit group, Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention" (McDowell, J. and Park, A., Time, June 29th, 1998 p.52) Has anorexia wormed its way into the very languages (e.g. psychology, psychiatry, etc) we use in our vain attempts to track it down and find it out? Perhaps anorexia speaks these language(s) even more fluently and with more dexterity than most of us. Why? Is it surer about its purposes - to break these young women's will, to convict them as inadequate or flawed, demand their confessions than we are with our healing intentions? I propose this because so many of the 'treatments' for anorexia blame either the victim of it or their families (and in particular, their mother) and proceed by way of 'examination' of everyone's every thought and feeling until one or more of the parties agree to confess. So often, in my experience, anorexia had already instigated these young women to surveil and police their every utterance and gesture against anorexia's 'measure'. Their lives, in a manner of speaking, are numbered, counted, compared against 'norms, specifying what qualifies them as a person gendered female. And what's more, a 'good' person or woman. Anorexic 'measures' never stand still but keep shifting until Perfection is the minimally satisfactory criterion for the status of 'woman/person'.

If she could have spoken 'anti-anorexically' *, she may very well have proclaimed her conscientious objection to Anorexia rather than such a confession of her offenses.

"Anorexia, why are you trying to confound and confuse me so that the contradictions I experience growing up as a woman in these times are obscured? Why did you appear just when I started to make myself up? How did you turn what I began to critique into my own estrangement? Why would you want to turn me against my very desires, wishes, opinions and appetites? And if I were, with a community of like-minded women, to reflect upon such matters as how and why you conscript us into prison camps, where we are defenseless against your tortures and violations, might we turn against you rather than our own bodies, minds and spirits?"

Letter to the Editor, Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review

Response to Howard Steiger's (1993) review of "Psychiatry as Social Ordering: Anorexia Nervosa."
Helen Gremillion 1994

I am writing in response to Howard Steiger's (1993) review of my article, Psychiatry as Social Ordering: Anorexia Nervosa, A Paradigm (Gremillion, 1992). I appreciate this opportunity to clarify my ideas about psychiatric constructions of anorexia, and to respond to Steiger's criticisms.

First, let me briefly summarize my argument in *Psychiatry as Social Ordering*. In this paper, I write about approaches to understanding and treating anorexia that work with the problem as if it resides within individuals and/or families. These approaches objectify and pathologize anorexia by focusing on a damaged "self" within a damaged body and within a "dysfunctional" family. I argue that, while this objectification works to remove anorexia from its cultural context, it is based on ideas that are culturally constructed. For example, objectivist approaches within psychiatry assume a mind/body dichotomy, and also assume an individual/family dichotomy by supporting individuation and individuals' "separation" from families. These ideas are culturally specific, but are taken to be self-evident.



I argue that these powerful cultural dichotomies provide a context or the emergence of anorexia in the first place. Anorexia is about a struggle with these dichotomies a struggle that is experienced as "internal" to persons and families, just as an objectivist psychiatry would represent it. However, even as anorexia depends on a tacit acceptance of these dichotomies, it also problematizes them by revealing that they are embedded in gendered power relationships. Treatment approaches that are pathologizing participate in these power relationships by representing anorexia as deviance from a "healthy" norm. In contrast, I try to show how anorexia *challenges* dominant norms of "health" by exaggerating them e.g., control over the body, calculated self-management, individualism. The challenge is that this exaggeration has paradoxical, and horrific, effects: total lack of bodily control, and a profound experience of inefficacy and dependency. I show that treatments for anorexia positing a damaged or deficient self, and prescribing techniques of self-control to overcome this problem, recreate the very conditions of the problem.........

..

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/art...walshMP.htm#Met


Conditions associated with undermethylation: Anorexia, Bulemia, shopping/gambling disorders, depression, schizo-affective disorder, delusions, oppositional-defiant disorder, OCD.

Conditions associated with overmethylation: Anxiety/Panic disorders, anxious depression, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, low motivation, "space cadet" syndrome, paranoid schizophrenia, hallucinations. (Oct 3, 2003)

One-carbon (methyl) groups are involved in numerous important biochemical reactions in the body, including genetic expression, neurotransmitter synthesis and metabolism, etc. Methylation (more properly, the methyl/folate ratio) is a major factor in the rate-limiting step (the tetrahydrobiopterin reaction) in the synthesis of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in the brain. Undermethylated persons tend to be depleted in these 3 neurotransmitters, and the opposite is true for overmethylation.

The SAM cycle in which dietary methionine is converted to SAMe (the primary CH3 donor in the body), and then to homocysteine, is a dominant cascade of reactions in methylation and also is very important in production of glutathione, cysteine, and other aspects of sulfur chemistry.

Most persons with depression, oppositional defiant disorder, OCD, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia exhibit a genetic abnormality in methylation..... which appears to be central to their illness. Carl Pfeiffer, MD, PhD of Princeton, NJ was a pioneer in this field. (Oct 3, 2003)

About 25 years ago, Dr. Carl Pfeiffer (Princeton, NJ) identified the condition he called "histapenia" or histamine deficiency. After studying the metabolism of more than 20,000 schizophrenics he learned that this
"low histamine" syndrome was common in anxiety, panic disorders, and classical paranoid schizophrenia. His enormous biochemistry database revealed that most histapenics suffered from (1) copper overload and (2)
deficiency of folic acid and/or B-12. More importantly, he found that aggressive therapy using folic acid, B-12, and B-3 usually produced dramatic improvements in these persons. Pfeiffer thought the improvements were largely due to elevating histamine levels in the body & brain.


Subsequent research has indicated that the improvements are due to normalizing the methyl/folate ratio.



Also, a serious overload of homocysteine (homocysteinuria) can result in symptoms quite identical to paranoid schizophrenia. Folic Acid & B-12 serve to lower HCy levels.

One thing that is absolutely certain is that methionine and/or SAMe usually harm low-histamine (overmethylated persons)..... but are wonderful for high-histamine (undermethylated) persons. The reverse in true for histadelic (undermethylated) persons, who thrive on methionine, SAMe, Ca and Mg..... but get much worse if they take folates & B-12 which can increase methyl trapping.

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/art...walshMP.htm#Met

Anorexia and bulimia

We have found that nearly all anorexic and/or bulemic patients are very undermethylated, low serotonin persons. Most of then respond very well, albeit slowly, to aggressive doses of methionine, Vitamin B-6, and calcium.A positive response can usually be achieved more rapidly with SAMe. In severe cases we often start with SAMe to get a quick improvement, and than gradually convery to methionine/B-6/calcium.

I certainly agree that a lousy food choices can aggravate an eating disorder, and might even trigger it in a person with a tendency for OCD and delusional thinking. An excellent dietary & nutritional program is an important component of success for these persons. (7 Jan, 2003)

In my experience, most anorexics are perfectionistic, obsessive-compulsive, high-histamine, low serotonin persons. Most have a history of high accomplishment in school and were never discipline problems. Most anorexics also have a history of being overweight, at least in their eyes. When they begin to diet, their OCD takes over and they go to great extremes. Also, when these emaciated skeletons of people look in the mirror, they tell me that all they see is FAT. It seems to involve a nasty combination of obsessive/compulsive disorder plus delusional thinking. I've never noticed a correlation with lousy diets. The anorexic I know best at present is a dedicated nutritionist/dietician..... who eats only the finest nutrient-dense whole foods. Her condition is still serious. (Jan, 2003)

I've observed that most anorexic and bulemic patients benefit greatly from a combination of biochemical therapy and counseling/psychotherapy. (30 Dec, 2002)

I've researched the biochemistry of hundreds of OCD patients, many of whom had comorbidity for schizo-affective disorder or delusional disorder. Typical characteristics for this patient population include undermethylation, weak functioning of the BH4 rate-limiting steps in synthesis of serotonin, and dopamine, low calcium levels, excessive folate levels, and high oxidative stress. (Aug 4, 2003)

Other helpful nutrients for OCD are methionine, calcium and magnesium...... since virtually all OCD patients are undermethylated, low-serotonin persons. (Aug 8, 2003)

Inositol is especially helpful for undermethylated persons (for example most persons with OCD), but can cause negative side effects in those who are overmethylated. Since Inositol is one of the primary second messengers in neurotransmission, it's surprising is isn't more commonly used. It's especially useful in reducing anxiety and enhancing sleep.

To enhance sleep for a 160 lb person, we usually recommend 650 mg tablets, 1-3 as needed for sleep. Persons who have difficulty falling asleep should take it 30-60 minutes before sleep. Persons whose main problem is waking up in the middle of the night should take it at bedtime.

We've often given as much as 3-4 grams/day to undermethylated persons who respond beautifully to Inositol, and these persons take it morning, noon, and evening.

I once gave an invited presentation at a symposium at an APS annual meeting... in which data on megadoses (15-30 g) of Inositol were reported by another speaker. The volume of Inositol used seemed extreme to me, and would present daunting compliance problems. I believe such huge doses of Inositol are unnecessary, if methionine, calcium, B-6, and other nutrients to combat undermethylation are used. However, massive doses of Inositol might be needed if one tries to combat OCD with Inositol alone.

A word of caution --- Manganese supplements tend to aggravate Tourette's Syndrome, and can also worsen the symptoms of OCD.

Trichotillomania has been associated with OCD and undermethylation. If you can confirm the presence of undermethylation, the patient should benefit from (1) aggressive doses of l-methionine, calcium, magnesium, along with augmenting nutrients zinc, B-6, Inositol, Vitamin A & C and (2) strict avoidance of folic acid, choline, DMAE, and copper supplements

Basal Ganglia Contribute to Learning, but Also Certain Disorders
By Kayt Sukel
About Kayt Sukel
January 15, 2007

Move over, hippocampus. The basal ganglia, a group of interconnected brain areas located deep in the cerebral cortex, have proved to be at work in learning, the formation of good and bad habits, and some psychiatric and addictive disorders.

Scientists have found that the neurotransmitter dopamine, already linked to the basal ganglia in movement disorders, also is important in learning via reward and punishment, as well as in disorders including schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This new understanding of how the basal ganglia work has revealed possible avenues for treatment of these and other disorders.

Psychiatric Disorders and Addiction

The basal ganglia are involved not only with Parkinson’s disease but also an array of psychiatric and addiction disorders. Neuroimaging studies have shown abnormal activation of the striatum and other areas of the basal ganglia in patients with schizophrenia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and anorexia nervosa, as well as drug addiction.

O’Reilly and Frank have recently started looking at the basal ganglia in learning in patients with ADHD and OCD. Their research has shown that patients with ADHD, who generally show an overall decrease of dopamine in the basal ganglia, show not only impaired learning with positive feedback but also coordination deficits.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?...=&objectid=

"There is a low blood flow in one specific part of the brain on one side. It only occurs in people with anorexia and does not occur in people without anorexia," Professor Lask said.

The part affected, called the insula, links other key parts of the brain involved in the disorder.

Anorexia is marked by intense feelings of anxiety, linked with the amygdala, restlessness and irritation (basal ganglia), obsessive thoughts (frontal lobe), visuo-spatial difficulties (parietal lobe) as well as body image (the somato-sensory cortex).

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m067..._20/ai_86230648

Furthermore, training on a stability ball provides numerous benefits similar to those of Pilates, such as increased muscle tone and flexibility, improved posture, coordination and a greater sense of body awareness. The most significant difference is how the ball addresses core stabilization. Exercising on an unstable surface forces automatic recruitment of the body's core muscles to hold a position of balance. Since stabilization is a reflex action rather than a conscious effort, training on the ball is often more effective than performing similar movements on the floor.

On a neuromuscular level, the brain is focused less on which specific muscles are contracting and primarily on performing the activity without falling off the ball.

"Serum autoantibodies to brain in Landau-Kleffner variant, autism, and other neurologic disorders" (Journal of Pediatrics, vol. 134, no. 5, May 1999, pp. 607-613): "Etiologically unexplained disorders of language and social development have often been reported to improve in patients treated with immune-modulating regimens. Here we determined…children with L[andau] K[leffner] S[ydrome] V[ariant] and A[utistic] S[pectrum] D[isorder] have a greater frequency of serum antibodies to brain endothelial cells and to nuclei than children with non-neurologic illnesses or healthy children. The presence of these antibodies raises the possibility that autoimmunity plays a role in the pathogenesis of language and social developmental abnormalities in a subset of children with these disorders.

"Characteristics of antineuronal antibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus patients with and without central nervous system involvement: the role of mycobacterial cross-reacting antigens" (Israeli Journal of Medical Science, vol. 26, no. 7, July 1990, pp. 367-73): indirect immunofluorescence of human brain tissue sections revealed, in thirteen of sixteen patients, high antineuronal antibody titers. Competition assays showed that the binding of the antineuronal antibodies was blocked by mycobacterial glycolipids and bovine brain extracts.

"This finding suggests an additional link between mycobacterial infection and SLE."

"Increased prevalence of antibrain antibodies in the sera from schizophrenic patients" (Schizophrenia Research, vol. 14, no. 1, December 1994, pp. 15-22); "Antibodies to brain tissue in sera of schizophrenic patients-preliminary findings" (European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, vol. 242, no. 5, 1993, pp. 314-7): Antibrain antibodies have been found in the sera of schizophrenic patients, but not in normal controls. These seem to be directed against brain centers affected in schizophrenia.


<<behavior and movement disorders >>

"A controlled study of serum anti-locus ceruleus antibodies in REM sleep behavior disorder" (Sleep, vol. 20, no. 5, May 1997, pp. 349-51): "The newly identified association of human nonnarcoleptic rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) DQwl class II genes raises the possibility that RBD may arise from autoimmune mechanisms."

[The following reports are not vaccine-specific; rather they serve to underline one of the possible conditions resulting from altered permeability of, or damage to the intestine, as occurs in association with measles and other viruses. Note: strep-type bacteria are among those which can translocate from the gut; these have been implicated in cases of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Tourette Syndrome.] "Bacterial translocation from the gastrointestinal tract" (Trends in Microbiology, vol. 3, no. 4, April 1995, pp. 149-54): Viable indigenous bacteria from the gastrointestinal tract can migrate to other sites within the body, such as the mesenteric-lymph-node complex, liver, spleen, and bloodstream. Three mechanisms support bacterial translocation: intestinal bacterial overgrowth, deficiencies in host immune defenses and increased permeability or damage to the intestinal mucosal barrier.

. What it shows is that the same supplements that help one category, actually hurt another. So please be careful!

Claire


SUMMARY of SUPPLEMENTS

1. UNDERMETHYLATED, high histamines

GOOD: methionine, SAMe, Calcium, Magnesium, B-6, Inositol, TMG, zinc.

BAD: Folic Acid, B-12, Choline, DMAE, copper



2. OVERMETHYLATED, low histamines

GOOD: Folic Acid, B-12, DMAE, B-3

BAD: methionine, SAMe, Inositol







Notes compiled from all over his site:

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/art...icles/walsh.htm



UNDER METHYLATED = HIGH HISTAMINES, elevated basophils histamine ( > 70)

Conditions associated with undermethylation: Anorexia, Bulemia, shopping/gambling disorders, depression, schizo-affective disorder, delusions, oppositional-defiant disorder, OCD. most exhibit seasonal allergies, perfectionism, strong wills, slenderness, OCD tendencies, high libido, etc.

hives more undermethylated



supplements:
methionine and/or SAM are wonderful for high-histamine (undermethylated) persons.

(undermethylated) persons thrive on methionine, SAMe, Ca and Mg, but get much worse if they take folates & B-12 which can increase methyl trapping. Generally, OCD patients respond nicely to methonine, SAMe, calcium, magnesium, B-6, Inositol, TMG, and zinc.


more than 40% of all clinically depressed men are undermethylated and benefit from therapies which enhance methylation.
High bloodhistamine indicates undermethylation, low serotonin levels



Most OCD patients (both obsessive thoughts AND compulsive actions) exhibit undermethylation and associated low levels of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Choline is anti-dopaminergic and often makes OCD patients worse. Most OCD patients get worse if given supplements of DMAE, choline, copper, or folic acid.

Inositol is usually very helpful for UNDERMETHYLATED, HIGH HISTAMINE patients. This includes nearly every OCD patient we have seen. Inositol usually provides calming throughout the day and ability to settle down to sleep at night, for these patients.

Some practitioners like to tinker with the SAM cycle to promote conversion of homocysteine to methionine, but this can deplete the cystathione pathway and result in deficiencies of glutathione, cysteine, etc. Some persons have a genetic enzyme weakness which can disrupt the SAM cycle

Undermethylated adults typically require 2,000 - 3,000 mg/day of methionine for several months to see good results. Also, augmenting nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, B-6, and zinc are essential.

Personally, I believe the use of SAMe is the quickest way to help an undermethylated, high-histamine person.



OVER METHYLATED = LOW HISTAMINES low histamine (< 40)



Overmethylated persons generally exhibit anxiety, absence of seasonal allergies, presence of food/chemical sensitivities, dry eyes, low perspiration, artistic/music interests/abilities, intolerance to Prozac and other SSRI's, etc.

Conditions associated with overmethylation: Anxiety/Panic disorders, anxious depression, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, low motivation, "space cadet" syndrome, paranoid schizophrenia, hallucinations. (Oct 3, 2003)



supplements:

?Over methylated do well on B-12 and folates?? ??

methionine and/or SAMe usually harm low-histamine (overmethylated persons)



Many anxious children are overmethylated and thrive on DMAE which passes the blood-brain barrier and enhances acetylcholine (which suppresses dopamine). Since DMAE tends to lower Dopamine, Norepinephrine, and Noradrenaline..... anxiety may be lessened and expressive language improved. Of course, DMAE is effective only for children who have a genetic tendency for elevated levels of these three neurotransmitters.

DMAE is usually indicated for children who are "space cadets" who have high anxiety, little motivation for learning, and poor organization. DMG is usually indicated for intense children who are strong willed, competitive, and exhibit obsessive/compulsive tendencies. (Oct 1, 2003)

On the other hand, OVERMETHYLATED patients usually derive little or no benefit from Inositol, and may experience very nasty side effects from it.

another 15% or so are overmethylated and need to head for the other goal line...... namely avoidance of methylating supplements and use of folate therapy.



histamine deficiency. After studying the metabolism of more than 20,000 schizophrenics he learned that this
"low histamine" syndrome was common in anxiety, panic disorders, and classical paranoid schizophrenia. His enormous biochemistry database revealed that most histapenics suffered from (1) copper overload and (2) deficiency of folic acid and/or B-12. More importantly, he found that aggressive therapy using folic acid, B-12, and B-3 (note: niacin) usually produced dramatic improvements in these persons.



http://www.personalhealthzone.com/vitamins...de_effects.html

Use caution if you have depression or bipolar disorder and are taking or considering taking inositol. There is a possibility that manic episodes may occur.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2005/jan200...ort_same_01.htm


One of the components needed to synthesize SAMe in the body is methionine. Without adequate supplies of methionine, SAMe production falters. It is interesting to note that maintaining healthy levels of methionine depends on adequate levels of folic acid and vitamin B12. Depression has been associated with a deficiency in either of these vitamins.21,22 The implication of this is that deficiencies of vitamin B12 and folic acid lead to deficiencies of SAMe, and thus to deficiencies in crucial neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine—all of which require the help of SAMe for synthesis.

Pellagra

Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease caused by dietary lack of niacin (B3) and protein, especially proteins containing the essential amino acid tryptophan.[1] Because tryptophan can be converted into niacin, foods with tryptophan but without niacin, such as milk, prevent pellagra. However, if dietary tryptophan is diverted into protein production, niacin deficiency may still result.

Pellagra is an endemic disease in Africa, Mexico, Indonesia and China. In modern societies, a majority of patients with clinical pellagra are poor, homeless, alcohol dependent, or psychiatic patients who refuse food.[2]

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid found in meat, poultry, fish, and eggs. If one's diet contains these foods, one's need for niacin from other sources will be reduced.[3]

The relationship between lysine and pellagra is unclear.[4]
Symptoms

The symptoms of pellagra include:

* High sensitivity to sunlight
* Aggression
* Dermatitis, alopecia, oedema
* Smooth, beefy red glossitis
* Red skin lesions
* Insomnia
* Weakness
* Mental confusion
* Ataxia, paralysis of extremities, peripheral neuritis
* Diarrhoea
* Eventually dementia


Frostig and Spies (acc. to Cleary and Cleary) described psychological symptoms of pellagra[6]:

The elementary syndrome:

* Psycho-sensory disturbances (impressions as being painful, annoying bright lights, odours intolerance causing nausea and vomiting, dizziness after sudden movements)

* Psycho-motor disturbances (restlessness, tense and a desire to quarrel, increased preparedness for motor action)
* Emotional Disturbanes
Impact on Skeletal Tissue

Gillman and Gillman related skeletal tissue and pellagra in their reseach in South African Blacks. They provide some of the best evidence for skeletal manifestations of pellagra and the reaction of bone in malnutrition. They claimed radiological studies of adult pellagrins demonstrated marked osteoporosis. A negative mineral balance in pellagrins was noted which indicated active mobilization and excretion of endogenous mineral substances, and undoubtedly impacted the turnover of bone. Extensive dental caries were present in over half of pellagra patients. In most cases caries were associated with severe gingival retraction, sepsis, exposure of cementum, and loosening of teeth. [7]
In the research conducted between 1900-1950 it was found that the cases of women with pellagra was consistently double the cases of men.[10] This is thought to be due to the inhibitory eddect of Estrogen on the conversion of the amino acid tryptophan to niacin.[11] It is also thought to be due to the differential and unequal access to quality foods within the household. Some researchers of the time gave a few explanations on the difference[12]As primary wage earners, men were given consideration and preference at the dinner table, they also had pocket money to buy food outside the household. Women gave protein quality foods to their children first. Women also would eat after everyone else had a chance to eat. Women also upheld the triad of maize, molasses and fat back pork which combine to contribute the cause of pellagra.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/50/17897

My research program has focused on using animal models and chemically defined diets to study nutrition and disease problems that affect both animals and humans. In this review, I will describe and briefly discuss my own personal list of "15 vexatious questions" that have intrigued me over the course of my career as an academic scientist.

The first six questions deal with sulfur compounds and sulfur amino acids (SAA, i.e., methionine and cysteine). The role of these compounds in protein synthesis, transmethylation, synthesis of glutathione, taurine, CoA, and phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphosulfate as well as in ameliorating various inflammatory conditions have had longstanding emphasis in my laboratory. Clearly, the elegant research contributions of the late Vincent du Vigneaud (12), an Academy member and Nobel Laureate, provided great inspiration for the nutrition work on SAA done in my laboratory. Sulfur amino acid work is of great practical relevance to animal nutrition in that well over 90% of SAA production is used to fortify diets for animals, particularly poultry. Poultry diets around the world are based on corn and soybean meal, and these diets for poultry, without fortification, are deficient in SAA.


Questions

Question 1: Why Does the Addition of Methionine, Alone, to a Protein-Free Diet Increase Nitrogen Retention, Protein Accretion, and Growth? Several investigators have reported that methionine supplementation of a protein-free diet reduces body weight loss and improves nitrogen balance in rats (13), chickens (14), pigs (15), and dogs (16). Our own work (17) has confirmed the earlier suggestion (18) that the methionine response is not due to methionine per se but instead to methionine furnishing sulfur for cysteine biosynthesis via transsulfuration. Indeed, cysteine supplementation elicits a response equal to or greater than methionine. Protein turnover (degradation and synthesis) is an ongoing body process, even when no protein is being consumed. A portion of the amino acids released from body protein catabolism is oxidized and therefore not available for resynthesis of new protein. The cysteine response observed when a protein-free diet is fed implies that this amino acid is substantially depleted from body pools, making it the first limiting amino acids for endogenous protein synthesis.

Question 2: Why Is Excess Dietary L-Cysteine So Much More Toxic than an Isosulfurous Excess of L-Cystine, N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine or L-Methionine? At isosulfurous levels, L-cysteine, L-cystine, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, and L-methionine are equally efficacious for growth of animals fed a cysteine-deficient diet (19). Nonetheless, at pharmacologic dose levels these SAA elicit far different results (20–22). Addition of 3% or 4% L-cysteine to a typical corn–soybean meal diet for chicks or rats causes heavy mortality within 5 days. Similar levels of L-cystine, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, or methionine result in no mortality after 10 days of feeding. Cysteine is absorbed from the gut faster than cystine (22), and it has potent reducing-agent activity as well as mineral-chelation activity (21). It can also bind plasma proteins (22). N-acetylcysteine is less toxic than cysteine, perhaps because the deacetylation process occurs slowly. This is fortunate in that N-acetylcysteine is being used increasingly in the clinical setting (23, 24). It, along with cysteine itself, is also available over-the-counter in both health-food stores and pharmacies. They shouldn't be!

Question 3: Why Is Cystine the Least Digestible Amino Acid in Food and Feed Proteins? Most protein sources consumed by animals and humans have undergone some form of heat processing. This processing causes a significant portion of protein-bound cysteine to be oxidized to cystine, and protein-bound cystine is less digestible than protein-bound cysteine (25). The disulfide bridges created both within and between peptide chains when two cysteine residues condense to form cystine apparently restrict gut proteolytic enzyme attack. Whether the impaired digestibility results from presence of disulfide bonds within or between peptide chains is not known. Heat treatment together with alkaline food processing may also convert some of the dietary cystine to lanthionine (26), a crosslinked sulfur compound that has minimal SAA bioactivity (27). Thus, protein-bound cystine has a low bioavailability (28). This could be important clinically, because undigested cystine will pass to the colon where sulfate-reducing bacteria may degrade it to sulfides, and sulfides have been found noxious to colonic epithelial cells (29, 30). Still, the link between undigested SAA, particularly cystine, and colonic inflammation has not been firmly established.

Question 4: Are There Components of Foods and Feeds Other than Methionine, Choline, Betaine, Folacin, and Serine That Have Methyl Donating Capacity? Many foods and feedstuffs (e.g., soybean meal) contain significant and measurable quantities of S-methylmethionine (SMM), an analog of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM). As such, it may be capable of replacing (or sparing) SAM in biological methylation reactions such as choline biosynthesis from phosphatidylaminoethanol and creatine synthesis from guanidinoacetate. Our recent work using the chick as an animal model showed that SMM does indeed have choline-sparing activity (31). However, the methylation reaction in which homocysteine is converted to methionine prefers betaine as the methyl donor. Thus, methionine sparing by SMM was found to occur only when choline and betaine were deficient in the diet.

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate is another sulfur compound present in foods (32). Can consumption of this compound result in a choline-sparing effect similar to that observed with S-methylmethionine? Can ingestion of this compound reduce homocysteinemia via methylation of homocysteine to methionine? These two questions have not been answered.

Question 5: Why Are Sulfur Amino Acid Requirements for Adult Humans So Much Lower than Those for Adult Pigs? Amino acid requirements for maintenance have been determined based on attainment of zero nitrogen balance or on achievement of minimal oxidation of the test amino acid (direct oxidation method) or a target excess amino acid (indirect oxidation). With both humans and pigs, the maintenance SAA requirement (mg·kg–1·day–1) based on nitrogen balance has been found to be substantially higher than the maintenance lysine requirement (22). However, oxidation methodology has been used to set the official SAA and lysine requirements of humans (33), and this method has resulted in SAA requirement estimates that are less than one-half as great as the lysine requirement. Given that pigs and humans are similar physiologically and metabolically, how can the maintenance requirement ratio of SAA:lysine be so different between pigs and humans? Cysteine has an important precursor role (e.g., glutathione, taurine, CoA, and phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphosulfate biosynthesis) as well as an important role in synthesis of gut mucin and keratoid tissue that are ultimately sloughed from the body. Perhaps oxidation methodology underestimates the true requirement for an amino acid like cysteine. On the other hand, perhaps nitrogen balance methodology overestimates the requirement for an amino acid like cysteine. Clearly, these questions have not been resolved. Proper assessment of amino acid requirements is difficult and controversial (34–36).

Question 6: Why Do Some Dietary Copper Sources Provide Bioavailable Copper More Efficiently than Others, and How Does Cysteine Interact with Copper? Twenty years ago, cupric oxide (CuO) was the dominant source of Cu used in trace–mineral mixes for animals and in vitamin–mineral supplements for humans. However, research with pigs (37) and chickens (38, 39) has clearly shown that the Cu in CuO does not furnish any bioavailable Cu to the animal. However, copper oxide in the +1 state (i.e., Cu2O, cuprous oxide) is used as well as the sulfate and chloride salts of Cu. Many mineral supplements for humans continue to rely on CuO as a source of Cu, probably because this salt of Cu contributes to making a good (and smaller) pill (CuO is 80% Cu, whereas CuSO4·5H2O is only 25% Cu). Although definitive human data are not available on Cu utilization from CuO, the animal data make a convincing argument that CuO is probably poorly used by humans as well.

The liver and gall bladder are prominent storage sites for body Cu, but the bioavailability of Cu in pork liver (prominently used in pet foods) is near zero (40). The Cu in beef and chicken liver, on the other hand, is as bioavailable as that in CuSO4·5H2O (the accepted standard). What is the explanation for the poor Cu utilization in pork liver? A clear answer is problematic, although pork liver is known to be higher in cysteine than liver from other species, and cysteine is capable of binding Cu and therefore reducing its absorption from the gut (21).

Individuals with Wilson's disease (41) absorb too much and excrete too little Cu. Hepatologists treating these patients often use cysteine (or drug forms of cysteine such as D-penicillamine or dimercaptopropanol), N-acetylcysteine, or ascorbic acid as reducing agents and/or Cu-binding agents together with pharmacologic Zn supplementation to reduce dietary Cu absorption and enhance Cu excretion. Based on work with chicks fed high levels of Cu, cysteine compounds were found to be far more effective than either ascorbate or Zn in ameliorating the Cu-induced growth depression and reducing Cu deposition in the liver (42). Moreover, oral cysteine is over twice as effective as an isosulfurous level of either cystine or methionine (21). This finding, again, points to a marked difference between the pharmacologic effects of oral cysteine vs. cystine. The answer to this vexing difference between these two SAA probably lies in what is taking place in the gut, i.e., speed of absorption, amount taken up into mucosal protein, amount used for glutathione biosynthesis, and redox state and equilibrium.

Question 7: What Are the Priorities of Use When an Amino Acid with Multiple Functions Is Deficient in the Diet? Amino acids are used to synthesize a variety of different body proteins, e.g., myofibrillar, stromal, sarcoplasmic, keratoid, and acute-phase tissue proteins, hormones, enzymes, and specialized proteins such as metallothionein. Also, several amino acids have precursor roles. Concerning the synthesis priority of one type of protein over another when an amino acid is deficient, little is known about this intriguing question. Our work with chickens fed diets deficient in either histidine (43) or cysteine (44) suggested that protein synthesis is prioritized over either carnosine or glutathione synthesis. However, questions of priority remain for many amino acids that have important precursor roles: arginine for urea cycle function and synthesis of protein, creatine, polyamines, and nitric oxide; tyrosine for synthesis of protein, catecholamines, thyroxin, and melanin; tryptophan for synthesis of protein, serotonin, and niacin nucleotides; and glycine for synthesis of protein (contractile vs. collagen), heme, creatine, and uric acid. How gluconeognic amino acids are partitioned for gluconeogenesis vs. protein and precursor synthesis is another unresolved priority question. Other priority examples could be mentioned, but clearly, the priority for functional synthesis is an area of nutrition we do not fully comprehend.

Question 8: Why Does a Large Excess of Dietary Lysine Elicit a Growth Response in Niacin-Deficient Animals? Niacin activity comes not only from ingested niacin (or niacinamide) but also from ingested tryptophan. Most of the tryptophan flux during turnover goes to CO2 (via {alpha}-ketoadipic acid), with only a small portion going to seroto