Page 47 - Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry

Nutritional Treatments in Psychiatry | 47

“orthomolecular” as “optimum molecular environment.”
(Pauling 1968)
As medical science has progressed, nutrients have been
subjected to continued rigorous study as psychiatric treatments.
Biochemical pathways of neurotransmitters and other
neurochemicals have been mapped, showing the roles of
vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, and other
contributors to healthy neurochemistry.
Niacin has now been found to possibly be helpful with
Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A study on Alzheimer’s Disease
Transgenic Mice concluded: “...these results suggest that
nicotinamide [a form of B3] may also be effective against other
tauopathies, which share many common pathological features
with the tau pathology seen both in AD and in the 3xTg-AD mice.
In summary, the results presented here suggest that
nicotinamide has potential as a novel, safe, and inexpensive AD
therapy, either alone or in combination with AB [amyloid-beta]-
lowering therapies.” (Green 2008)
Also, a study of the nutritional habits of 4000 people aged 65
and older, who had no Alzheimer’s disease at the start of the
project, found: “Dietary niacin may protect against AD and age
related cognitive decline.” (Morris 2004)

The Methylation Cycle

While nutritional supplementation may seem, at first glance,
unlikely to impact mental function as significantly as
pharmaceuticals, the picture becomes clearer when we take a
look at some of the biochemical pathways that affect psychiatric
symptoms. Here we see that nutrients are the building blocks of
normal cerebral activity and, without them, necessary neural
processes cannot occur.
One example of such biochemical activity is the methylation
cycle (Figure 4.1). Methylation refers to the transfer of methyl
groups (CH —a carbon atom bonded to three hydrogen atoms) to
3
and from organic molecules, a process that occurs billions of