iThyroid.com

SCHIZOPHRENIA

Schizophrenia seems to be related to thyroid disease. In particular, some schizophrenics also have hyperthyroidism. In the early 1980s it was noticed that schizophrenics with hyperthyroidism often went into remission when they were given lithium for their schizophrenia. Some research was done to determine if hyperthyroidism was a lithium-deficiency disease. However the research did not pan out.

It is my belief that an adequate amount of lithium is essential for copper to get into the cells and be used properly. This does not mean that lithium deficiency is always a precursor of hyperthyroidism, merely that this could be one way to get copper-deficient.

While there is very little information to go on, I would suggest that any person with hyperthyroidism who also has schizophrenia or feels they might have tendencies toward schizophrenia try a small amount of lithium orotate (perhaps (4-6) 18 mg tablets). An overall balance of the alkaline minerals (lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, and cesium) is most likely essential for correction of both hyperthyroidism and schizophrenia. The sodium/potassium balance is particularly important. It's possible that excess sodium is the reason that lithium gets depleted, but too much is unknown about these mineral balances to determine the exact facts.

Unfortunately, most people with mild schizophrenic tendencies are in a poor position to evaluate themselves. However, there are a few signs that I've noticed in email exchanges that might help: one is the failure to capitalize letters at the beginnings of sentences or names; another is the use of the word "we" when "I" would be appropriate. I'm sure that there are other obvious signs also, but these are two that seem very common.

Another connection between schizophrenia and hyperthyroidism seems to be vitamin D. Hypers benefit from vitamin D, but often fail to get out in the sun because they are already hot and sweaty. Also, since hypers usually have a copper deficiency, they would tend to be more subject to sunburn since copper is essential to form melanin, the dark pigment that protects the skin from sunburn. I would recommend that once hypers have begun copper supplementation, they start getting more sunshine. It helps.

The following article is from Dr. Mercola's website, mercola.com which references the work from Krispin Sullivan on vitamin D. Her website at krispin.com is also a good source for information on vitamin D, magnesium, and potassium.

While the information suggests that the mother's deficiency of vitamin D can cause schizophrenia in her offspring, it is not known whether sunshine and vitamin D can help schizophrenia. I would think so.

Your Chances of Developing Schizophrenia Depend on How Much Sunshine Your Mother Received

Evidence is accumulating to support the theory that vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy, caused by a lack of sunlight, can alter the development of a child's brain in the womb. The data for a link with schizophrenia is still controversial, but potentially worrying because vitamin D deficiency is so common.

Vitamin D's role in building healthy brains had been largely ignored, until researchers began to spot some curious epidemiological trends.

People who develop schizophrenia in Europe and North America are more likely to be born in the spring. And they are roughly four times as likely to be born to Afro-Caribbean immigrants living in England as they are to have parents of other ethnic origins living in the same areas.

The body needs sunlight to make vitamin D, and people with darker skin need more than paler-skinned people. So such observations led investigators to propose that a lack of vitamin D during early development tips the balance towards schizophrenia in genetically susceptible people.

Loud Noise

Investigators have completed studies on rats that add experimental meat to the epidemiological bones. They have found that - just like humans with schizophrenia - adult rats deprived of vitamin D from conception are more startled than normal by a loud noise preceded by a soft noise.

Ventricles in the brains of vitamin-deprived baby rats are also unusually large, a feature seen in people with schizophrenia.

The researchers also used "gene chips" to look at the activity of thousands of genes in the brains of adult rats deprived of vitamin D during gestation. The chips revealed many genes had become less active, including three for brain receptors, and several that code for proteins involved in building nerve synapses.

Wake-Up Call

The rat studies clearly show that too little vitamin D does something nasty to the brain. We urgently need to find out exactly what that is, because vitamin D deficiency affects 12 per cent of women of childbearing age, according to a large US survey.

This should be a big wake-up call. We should find out quickly because low vitamin D could impact general intelligence, and have a whole range of neurological outcomes.

International Society for Developmental Neuroscience meeting in Sydney, Australia February 2002

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

Sunlight is man's primary source of vitamin D. It seems quite obvious that man developed in tropical or subtropical areas and thus, has a need for sunlight as a nutrient.

When we migrated further away from the equator, our ability to obtain valuable sunlight and its important influence on our health, was dramatically reduced.

The 12% figure of vitamin D deficient women cited in the U.S. is likely to be dramatically underestimated. They were likely using reference ranges designed for average, thinking that was optimal.

I have been enormously blessed to connect with Krispin Sullivan. She is a nutritionist in northern California and, in my estimation, is one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet in this field.

She will be publishing a book called Naked at Noon, which should be out later this year. I thought it was some crazy novel when I first saw the title, but it is a very accurate description of what most of us in the U.S. need to be doing when adequate sunshine is available.

If you need to know this information before her book is published a preliminary copy of her vitamin D research is available on her web site. While she has an e-mail listed on her site, please understand that she doesn't have any time to respond to personal e-mails, or her book will never be finished.

Obviously, we should not be prancing around in the nude, but most all of us need to expose far more of our skin to the sun during the noon hour to get the beneficial UV-B.

Now, I can just hear scores of you getting alarmed that this recommendation will increase your risk of skin cancer. Well folks, nothing could be further from the truth.

I will provide all of the documentation and scientific research to support this assertion in future issues. But, I am convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that as long as you avoid being sunburned, sun exposure at noon on unexposed skin, is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body.

Krispin has been kind enough to mentor me in the incredible value of vitamin D and how it is one of the biggest missing nutritional links not being addressed, even by incredibly astute physicians.

Using foods to optimize people's health has been my driving passion for more than a decade. I have reviewed tens of thousands of articles and I missed it big time, so I am sure many others have also.

I will be providing a series of articles in the upcoming weeks to further expand on this extremely important topic.

The necessary doses for vitamin D are far higher than previously imagined. Most of us would likely benefit from doses closer to 4,000 units, not 400 units. This is a full order of magnitude higher than the RDAs.

However, the best way to get this is through sun exposure, NOT though supplements. Unfortunately, for most of us in the U.S. there are only a few months of the year where this is even possible.

Then, even in those months, if you live in a polluted urban area, or it is cloudy, there will not be enough UV-B to penetrate the clouds, smog, or ozone to stimulate vitamin D production in your skin.

I am working with a company on a very inexpensive UV-B meter tha can be brought with you places, so you can know exactly how much sunlight you need on a given day to generate vitamin D exposure. It is a complex determination, since you also need to factor in the color of your skin.

So, most of us will be stuck using supplements. My favorite is cod liver oil, since that solves another major issue in our diet, omega three deficiency.

However, one needs to be cautious with supplements at these doses, and the solution will be to monitor your blood levels of vitamin D.

You can read the other article on vitamin D in this issue that addresses the cautions.