What Do You Think About Orthomolecular Medicine (Hoffer, Pfeiffer..)

[youngsinatra]

Hello everyone,

I‘d like to hear your opinions on the concept of orthomolecular medicine?

I lately read through a couple of books and texts from Dr. Abram Hoffer and Dr. Carl C. Pfeiffer who use vitamins and mineral therapy for psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia, psychosis, anxiety disorder, depression - but they also write on other topics like cancer, chronic fatigue or heart disease.

Through their work I found out that I was clearly histapenic (low histamine) with high copper and all symptoms matched perfectly.
Free floating anxiety, paranoia, balance problems, on-edge, wired but tired, felt close to going psychotic, had bounds of derealization and tweaked perception of reality, plus inability to reach orgasm.

I tried some of the suggested therapeutic supplements like high dose B3 as niacinamide, zinc, magnesium to which I responded very well. Since starting on it I feel pretty much normal again and have a lot of energy again and most importantly I feel happier and more stable mentally on it. I can go to work full time + side job without feeling like dying.

 

[InChristAlone]

I really appreciate Hoffer's work. I'm currently experimenting with niacin and haven't gotten a flush from doses of less than 200 mg. I believe this indicates low histamine? I gave maybe 100 mg to my son and he had a strong flush, red splotches all over and he's the typical high histamine type.

 

[Birdie]

It's what I followed for many years before finding Peat.

 

[Peatness]

I was into Hoffer’s work before I found Dr Peat. I started using vitamin C and B3 after reading his books. I must admit I did pretty well on the vitamin C and b3 combo. I dropped vitamin C after I started peating. I sometimes wonder if that was the right thing to do. I still used niacinamide but not the doses hoffer suggests. With thyroid the high doses are not needed.

 

[youngsinatra]

I really appreciate Hoffer's work. I'm currently experimenting with niacin and haven't gotten a flush from doses of less than 200 mg. I believe this indicates low histamine? I gave maybe 100 mg to my son and he had a strong flush, red splotches all over and he's the typical high histamine type.

Could be! I haven‘t tried normal niacin yet, but I would bet that it would be the same for me. Hoffer said that severely overmethylated schizophrenics can tolerate huge amounts of normal niacin without the flush.

I hover around 3 to 4.5 grams of B3 per day roughly. Hoffer took 4.5g for 50 years.

I have a psychotic friend of mine that really calmed down with 25-50mg of zinc and magnesium glycinate per day plus getting his vitamin D up to 50-60ng/ml.

 

[JudiBlueHen]

I have Hoffer's books and also this interesting compendium of orthomolecular topics from the heyday of orthomolecular science.

 

[Peatness]

I have Hoffer's books and also this interesting compendium of orthomolecular topics from the heyday of orthomolecular science.

View attachment 26902

I have the pdf if anyone else is interested. It's a good read

 

[InChristAlone]

Could be! I haven‘t tried normal niacin yet, but I would bet that it would be the same for me. Hoffer said that severely overmethylated schizophrenics can tolerate huge amounts of normal niacin without the flush.

I hover around 3 to 4.5 grams of B3 per day roughly. Hoffer took 4.5g for 50 years.

I have a psychotic friend of mine that really calmed down with 25-50mg of zinc and magnesium glycinate per day plus getting his vitamin D up to 50-60ng/ml.

Yeah he could tolerate such large amounts of niacin. I saw one of his videos where he showed the bottles of supplements he takes everyday. Pretty much every nutrient.

I got some histidine hcl to experiment with. My main goal being better digestion and I think it worked, didn't have to use it very much and now can digest red meat much better. Also easy orgasm is nice too!

 

[ursidae]

I really appreciate Hoffer's work. I'm currently experimenting with niacin and haven't gotten a flush from doses of less than 200 mg. I believe this indicates low histamine? I gave maybe 100 mg to my son and he had a strong flush, red splotches all over and he's the typical high histamine type.

I think so. I’ve experimented with histidine and whenever I’ve been off it for too long niacin doesn’t cause me a flush. If I’m having daily niacin while taking histidine I have to increase my dose of histidine quite a bit to keep getting a flush.

 

[youngsinatra]

Yeah he could tolerate such large amounts of niacin. I saw one of his videos where he showed the bottles of supplements he takes everyday. Pretty much every nutrient.

I got some histidine hcl to experiment with. My main goal being better digestion and I think it worked, didn't have to use it very much and now can digest red meat much better. Also easy orgasm is nice too!

Yes histamine is crucial for stomach acid secretion and thus digestion.

 

[youngsinatra]

I think so. I’ve experimented with histidine and whenever I’ve been off it for too long niacin doesn’t cause me a flush. If I’m having daily niacin while taking histidine I have to increase my dose of histidine quite a bit to keep getting a flush.

Do you have symptoms of histapenia?

 

[khan]

[Histidine therapy of chronic gastritis with hyperacidity] - PubMed

[Histidine therapy of chronic gastritis with hyperacidity]

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Has anyone tried histidine for gastritis?

 

[ursidae]

Do you have symptoms of histapenia?

Yeah
High anxiety, low stomach acid, paranoia, fatigue, don’t suffer colds, low motivation, depression, dry mouth, obsessions, copper overload, poor sleep, hirsutism, food sensitivities, head pain. I’ve had auditory hallucinations at night in the past when I was a vegetarian/acutely stressed/living on gluten and dairy/no sun. But it was very rare
I decided to take T3 recently as last resort to my skin issues. it improved the depression, motivation and fatigue however worsened the paranoia and anxiety and I had a phobia induced panic attack on day 2 that kept me up all night
I think my low histamine is caused by low histidine due to nickel toxicity from my braces and retainer
Also low stomach acid will make you absorb less zinc, less p5p, impair ability to hydrolyse protein into more easily absorbable peptides and derive histidine.. it’s circular

 

[khan]

I think so. I’ve experimented with histidine and whenever I’ve been off it for too long niacin doesn’t cause me a flush. If I’m having daily niacin while taking histidine I have to increase my dose of histidine quite a bit to keep getting a flush.

Which brand of histidine ur using?

 

[youngsinatra]

Yeah
High anxiety, low stomach acid, paranoia, fatigue, don’t suffer colds, low motivation, depression, dry mouth, obsessions, copper overload, poor sleep, hirsutism, food sensitivities, head pain. I’ve had auditory hallucinations at night in the past when I was a vegetarian/acutely stressed/living on gluten and dairy/no sun. But it was very rare
I decided to take T3 recently as last resort to my skin issues. it improved the depression, motivation and fatigue however worsened the paranoia and anxiety and I had a phobia induced panic attack on day 2 that kept me up all night
I think my low histamine is caused by low histidine due to nickel toxicity from my braces and retainer
Also low stomach acid will make you absorb less zinc, less p5p, impair ability to hydrolyse protein into more easily absorbable peptides and derive histidine.. it’s circular

I feel you! Zinc bisglycinate really calmed me down like nothing else when It was really bad for me acutely, even though my zinc intake was theoretically really well. I think the malabsorption is really significant. Other than 25-50mg of zinc I can recommend taking large amounts of B3 niacinamide to alleviate symptoms of histapenia.

The supplemental zinc apparently also stopped my chronic diarrhea, which was odd to me too.

 

[ursidae]

I feel you! Zinc bisglycinate really calmed me down like nothing else when It was really bad for me acutely, even though my zinc intake was theoretically really well. I think the malabsorption is really significant. Other than 25-50mg of zinc I can recommend taking large amounts of B3 niacinamide to alleviate symptoms of histapenia.

The supplemental zinc apparently also stopped my chronic diarrhea, which was odd to me too.

I need a lot of zinc bisglycinate to not get white spots on my nails. Zinc carnosine was very helpful for my digestive issues and it’s used to treat ulcers as “PepZin GI”. My impression of B3 is it causes a large release of histamine and you’re left with lower baseline levels. I know I needed to increase my histidine intake to get a flush if I took niacin the previous days. Got dry mouth from niacin etc. One thing I wonder about is if eating histamine rich foods will increase histamine. My staples are high in histamine and I consume on a daily basis an amount that would kill someone with histamine intolerance

Ray peat recommends zinc gluconate (I don’t absorb it well) because of heavy metal contamination and I’ve been looking into that lately. I think one reason that people who are deep into nutrition often worsen their health are contaminated supplements. It would also partly account for people’s wildly different responses to supplementing a vitamin/mineral. There’s a freesite where a limited number of supplements are tested

Supplement Ratings and Reviews - Labdoor

Labdoor sends top-selling vitamins and supplements to an FDA-registered laboratory for purity and label accuracy testing, and then delivers the results straight to you. Use Labdoor to research, find, and purchase the best dietary supplements on the market today.

labdoor.com

Some of calcium supplements are pretty poor in terms of purity.

I think ConsumerLab has even more tested but it’s not free of charge

 

[ursidae]

Which brand of histidine ur using?

Lamberts. Kinda pricey here, I’m looking for other options that won’t be held up in customs

 

[khan]

Lamberts. Kinda pricey here, I’m looking for other options that won’t be held up in customs

Thanks for the reply. You have also used pepzingi also. Was it also Lamberts or something else?

 

[youngsinatra]

The Hoffer and Osmond Theory and Treatment of Schizophrenia (1968)

 

[Peatness]

Is Vitamin B3 Dependency a Causal Factor in the Development of Hypochlorhydria and Achlorhydria?

Is Vitamin B3 Dependency a Causal Factor in the Development of Hypochlorhydria and Achlorhydria? - Jonathan E. Prousky, B.P.H.E., B.Sc., N.D.