Orthomolecular Nutrition to the Rescue!

Feeding Minds, Feeding Bodies
Written by Rosalie Moscoe
Monday, 29 December 2008


Orthomolecular Nutrition to the Rescue!

My husband and I waved goodbye as we watched our son John (not his real name) board the plane, happily joking with his buddies. The year was 1989. John was 19, and headed for what we expected to be a wonderful youth tour overseas; indeed, for the first few weeks he called home to say what a good time he was having. But after the fourth week, we received a shocking phone call. The trip organizers were sending him home. John had become paranoid and delusional; he had been taken to a hospital after fainting at the top of a mountain.
We left on the next plane and returned with a young man who not only looked physically ill and emaciated but also was totally psychotic. We were devastated.
John was hospitalized for a short time and was released with antipsychotic medication. The doctor told us it was “psychosis”. His personality changed. Our outgoing, friendly, affectionate boy and talented musician now spent hours in his room, asleep. Awake, he suffered Parkinson-like tremors and tardive dyskinesia, a side effect of his medication.
His progress was negligible and within a year, he was hospitalized with symptoms of schizophrenia. Upon his release, John was marginally better. Schizophrenia prognosis was dim. What was to become of him?
Frantically I searched for answers. Traditional texts left me feeling hopeless. By sheer luck, I came across a book by psychiatrist, Dr. Abram Hoffer, M.D. PhD., psychiatrist, and a scholar of bio-chemistry. The book (now renamed Healing Schizophrenia) discussed diets with healthy nutrients, free of allergens that could help his condition. (Hoffer is the author of 31 books and 500 research papers.)
Also emphasized were nutrition health benefits of nutrients in supplement form such as Vitamin B3 (niacin) and Vitamin C – both natural and essential to the human body for restoring health along with other nutrients.
Orthomolecular medicine is the practice of optimizing health and treating disease by providing correct amounts of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, essential fatty acids and other substances which are natural to the body’s environment. In other words, find out what’s missing in the body and brain and give it what it needs and wants. Orthomolecular treatments are also safe to use along with medication.

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