Orthomolecular Treatment for Schizophrenia Paperback – April 11, 1999

This is a timeless book which is good reading during also years in the future. This among other because we still in the daily news are seeing how the press mostly still is fighting for the old way of the thinking concerning the schizophrenia and the using of the drugs versus the natural pills. And historically in the book being reminding about how people like Hoffer and other person found solutions to the cure of some important sicknesses.It's clearly writing and highly interesting as, among other, in the book we get many interesting patient cases. For example about 3 patients who all showed up having schizophrenia coursed by allergy and this which showed up being allergic to the quite different things as respectively aspirin, smoking and meat. And we later in the book learn that many persons, without their knowing, are have the problem by being allergic to the daily milk. And now days we are learning more and more about new subjects to which we can become allergic.From when I was teenager, back in the years around 1960, I still recall how we in the news were told, and in high school learned, that schizophrenia was a sickness which could not be cured. And it's first now by reading this book, and a few others which I recently have read, that I discover that Hoffer and a few other person already back in 1954s (before I started studying) began finding the reason for many persons having schizophrenia, and then in the most cases of how to solve the problem. This is again a repetition of what we have seen though out history, that is showing how long time it can take for new inventions, or discoveries, the truth, to be accepted.Some of the personal cases which we are getting in this book I earlier have learned about in some other books, but here it's very interesting to read the more complete stories. For example when we on the side 20 read about the women who were ordered to have electroconvulsive therapy, but Hoffer then got time to try with a mega dose of the C vitamin. And after she had got 45 gram of C vitamin during the weekend the sickness had diapered. And this was way back in the 1950s nearly twenty years before Linus Pauling started talking about C vitamin and the pharmaceutical industry in the press wend against him and warned that too much C vitamin, or other vitamins and minerals, would kill people!It's strange to read B. Chiko's statement to this book, and I understanding what the angry inorganic student wrote against this. And I speculate about weather B. Chiko also today would write an equal statement? But parallel to B. Chiko I have during the last couple of year's meat doctors that think as B. Chiko, and have got angry on me me when I have come with different thinking, that is thinking in the same way as especially Hoffer and Linus, for example concerning cholesterol.I have known the title of this book a couple of years but always thought that it really was nothing for me to read, as I don't have anything to do with schizophrenia. But then when reading other books and in them learning about Hoffer I thought I should go on and try to read it. And I must say that it showed up to be very interesting book, both with its explanation concerning schizophrenia and besides also many other actual things like especially the vitamins. So put together it's a book which I highly recommend.

.....This is a very brief book (50 pages of prose) focused on providing the reader with illustrations and examples of how orthomolecular treatment helped his clients who often suffered horribly from the ravages of schizophrenia......While his selections of case histories is varied and illustrative of the various forms and presentations of Schizophrenia this is not a text useful for formulating a specific treatment. It is written to help those facing this illness realize that there are other options for those afflicted with Schizophrenia besides a lifetime of reliance on medication aimed at resolving symptoms. This medication often has permanent side effects that are known and futre side effects that have not been foreseen......The book is well documented with 76 research studies listed and referenced wherever Dr. Hoffer makes a factual assertion. So while the short text is easy to read, avoids explaining probable mechanisms and bogging the non-technical reader down it also provides links to well done research often in reputable publications......The book was of interest to me because my daughter suffered from horrid, uninformed even if well intended treatment that delayed her care. Dr. Hoffer writes about the mentally ill due to metabolism dysfunction and nutritional imbalances coming to him from families who had initially gone to professionals using debunked "recovered memory techniques" in the 1980's and 90's when the technique was popular. Dr. Hoffer understood the importance of intact and caring families to support and help the mentally ill recover. He commented on this experience: "...I find it very helpful to have the family in my office during the interview, with the patient's permission. A lot of time is saved in gathering the information needed to make the diagnosis. It also helps when the family hears the discussion and knows what the treatment will be. Although most psychiatrists no longer blame the family for the illness of a relative, it can still occur. It is important to remove any guilt them family may have derived from previous outmoded, harmful explanations.".....I give the book 5 stars because it has a focus on case histories and research substantiated positions that can help anyone who is ravaged by mental illness or has a family ravaged by mental illness. The book was written over 20 years ago now and much more about the physical pathways to schizophrenia is known now that was not known then but the details of those pathways are not important to the impact of this book. Despite the impediments to the widespread use of orthomolecular techniques during his lifetime Dr. Hoffer saw the change coming and he had great hope:"..If and when orthomolecular therapy is widely is widely accepted, the whole field of the biochemistry of schizophrenia and its treatment will flourish....It would be very exciting to come back in the year of 2020 to see what happened to this field."I do hope he is right!

How we fare health-wise is an interplay between our genes and the environment & inputs to our bodies. There are some genes, which individually confer a health/survival advantage, but when they are combined with certain other genes, create a vulnerability to schizophrenia-- a matter of chance at conception. Hoffer calls it a "genetic-morphism". This book is the result of Hoffer's lifelong work in scientific research and patient care, and it presents observations from both endeavors with many case studies as examples. The bottomline is that with avoidance of triggering substances and addressing the physiological vulnerability using orthomolecular treatments, most patients can live normal and productive lives. These patients need extra quantities of certain vitamins and food supplements to counter metabolic idiosyncrasies that otherwise result in illness. Hoffer is quite specific about what works in most patients. It would be good to get a copy of this book and work with a willing physician.