My latest work is on SubStack but I am going to start copying it here too. This post is about a series I have been working on regarding underlying risk factors about schizophrenia.
- This post is the beginning of the series about my proposed clinical trial: Schizophrenia risk factors may also be Alzheimer’s risk factors; Experimental design and variables. (substack.1).
- This prior post discusses the issue of harm from psychiatric and other medications and has some resources. Another oversite: #21 – psych med use (substack.3).
- And this one is related: #22 – Psychosomatic symptoms, Childhood ACE score (adverse factors). (substack.2) – The nutshell – psychosomatic symptoms may also be a problem but the overlap with schizophrenia is not significant, suggesting there is a biological basis to schizophrenia.
The second two were later in the series and are pertinent to the Table discussed below:
Since imagining a Table is not as easy as viewing a Table – a link. /*I didn’t imagine that the link wouldn’t work on my phone. (pdf in my Dropbox link)/ Verbal synopsis – a dozen medications commonly used in psychiatric care are listed with nutrients that may become depleted with ongoing use of the medication. The list of nutrients includes 23 items and there was a significant overlap with the potential causal factors I had identified regarding schizophrenia (this series: substack.1) – so I added another column to the medication Table.
The list of schizophrenia risk factors also had matched the previous list I had made for mitochondrial support. Comparing datasets can help show overlap or lack – these are different topics. Sadly, the list of nutrients depleted by psychiatric medications, the list of schizophrenia risk factors, and the list of mitochondrial support nutrients all match. That is some unhealthy math. Mitochondrial dysfunction and quantum biology disruption are likely leading people with less severe mental health problems into more severe schizophrenia and later Alzheimer’s could be the risk if the chronic nutrient deficiencies remain a problem.
Tables help us see patterns in a large amount of data and can help compare similar data sets.
- The medication data is from the book; Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and Stimulants, by Dr. David W. Tanton, Ph.D. (2006), and is as accurate as his work was at the time.
It makes it clear though, why people who are put on psychiatric medications tend to worsen more than people who aren’t started on meds for mild depression or anxiety. It also makes it clear why quality of life for patients with schizophrenia is now worse than it was 100 years ago. The focus of care at that time was simply stabilizing healthy diet and life routines, in a care facility setting perhaps, but just care, not medications.
A healthy diet can restore physical and mental health in many cases, but it may take work to figure out what individually is healthy versus adding to inflammatory problems.
Good health is visible:
And an Excerpt from my really not finished draft, about one of the other Tables viewable at the link. The paper still needs a lot of work and removing opinion excet from the Discussion section.
Excerpt:
Pain is a signal from our body that we are doing something wrong. Pain medications to block or desensitize pain is leaving the body vulnerable to ongoing damage. Identifying the causes of pain and removing them, reduces both the pain and risk of chronic damage from inflammation. Table 10 is a snapshot of a much larger database that physicians and patients need to have created, to more easily identify triggers of inflammation in both diet and lifestyle.
Table 10 has a focus on TRP channel activators for this article about nociceptive pain, as TRP channels are so closely involved with pain signaling and the topic is new from a therapeutic diet perspective.
Hot pepper, black pepper, horseradish, ginger, turmeric, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mint, and vanilla are TRP activators. Good in moderation, painful in excess. Migraine inducing or colitis flaring for hypersensitive patients.
Vanilla is calming. The TRPV1 channels can do anti-inflammatory things or send pain signals depending on the agonist. Trials with antagonists led to negative side effects from the peripheral functions of TRPV1 channels. Avoiding the activators avoids the pain or colitis flare-up.
Many types of TRP channels exist with varying agonists and those details are not included –it is a snapshot to get an idea of the size of the problem of identifying possible food triggers. From Table 10: TRP activating chemicals include: Histamine, Dopamine, Leptin, Arachidonic acid, Glutamate, cytokines, Substance P, and many others (See: Table 1, Kumar, et al, 2013) 1, 25, dihydroxy cholecalciferol-vit D. “…estrogen, androgen, testosterone, cortisol and many other steroids (Table 1)” (Kumar, et al, 2013) )”
*and therefore possibly estrogen mimetic chemicals are also adding to chronic pain.
See: Table 10. Foods Ranked by Potentially Inflammatory Categories, NF-kB promoting if sensitive; and Nrf2 promoting status otherwise* – healthy if not individually sensitized and the product was grown organically.
The TRP pain chain of events: emotional or physical stress degranulates mast cells, releasing histamine and cytokines, which activate TRP channels that send pain signals via an increase in intracellular calcium or sodium. The influx of calcium can lead to overactivity of the cell and lead to cell damage and add up to fibrotic damage over time.
ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, MCAS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), Dysautonia or POTS, can all be chronic problems with little help available regarding reversing the symptoms rather than treating symptoms and coping with pain and other symptoms.
Disrupt the pain: self-calming techniques and pacing activity, avoiding TRP and histamine food triggers and vitamin A/carotenoids if Retinoid Toxicity is a problem, and wearing layered clothing to easily adjust to temperature changes, and avoiding excess EMF, etcetera; can help prevent degranulation of mast cells. Taking pomegranate products could also help inhibit mast cells and prevent more histamine from activating more TRP pain channels. Preventing the pain in the first place would be more efficient.
“Doctor, it hurts when I bang my thumb with a hammer!” The doctor can give pain medication and ideally would also suggest more practice using a hammer. Knowing what is causing the pain and knowing how to stop it has more value to patients than simply treating pain. We know over-activation of TRP channels can cause pain signals. We know less about why some people seem to have more activation, or more expression of TRP channels. Childhood or chronic trauma can be causal of Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), in addition to gene alleles possibly being an individual factor. Increased expression of TRPV1 channels was observed and correlated with the level of hypersensitivity inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and in patients with rectal hypersensitivity. (Hicks, 2006) (González-Ramírez , et al, 2017)
Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.
(González-Ramírez , et al, 2017) González-Ramírez R, Chen Y, Liedtke WB, and Morales-Lázaro SL. Chapter 8: TRP Channels and Pain, Emir TLR, editor. Neurobiology of TRP Channels, Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press/Taylor & Francis; 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK476120/
(Hicks, 2006) Hicks, G.A. 2006. TRP channels as therapeutic targets: Hot property, or time to cool down? Neurogastroenterol Motil, 18(8): 590–594. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2982.2006.00823.x. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16918723/
David W Tanton, Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, And Stimulants – Dangerous Drugs on Trial. Soaring Heights, 2006, https://www.amazon.com/Antidepressants-Antipsychotics-Stimulants-Dangerous-Soaring/dp/0977270327