The Theory of Mental and Elemental Nutrients

Good nutrition has been long considered protective of psychiatric conditions and health/ illness in general.  The role of minerals in health risk for schizophrenia and pioneering research in the area, are showcased.  Urine testing in the Elemental Model was used to form distinct “schizo” subtypes that may respond to different vitamin and mineral therapies.  Zinc therapy assists the immune system and white cells to function.




Dr. Carl Pfeiffer PhD MD wrote the book: “Mental and Elemental Nutrients” in 1975.  Dr. Pfeiffer’s research, practice, and experience as director of the Brain BioCentre led him to propose that many mental conditions arise from bodily malfunctions.  He specifically proposed that the absence of vital nutrients in the body contributes to and is responsible for many mental conditions.
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Recently, the Pfizer Institute has conducted research along the same principles and reached some interesting conclusions from research on urinary by-products.  The conclusion: changing nutrient intake can change the progression of a number of mental conditions including schizophrenia.
Unfortunately, the proposal received very little serious attention from my medical colleagues on the night.  After all, how can nutrients affect the progression or regression of mental conditions?

Dr. Xxxxx’s personal opinion on the role of nutrients is coloured less by clinical medicine than by organic biochemistry.  Many minerals have multiple roles in the body. 
Minerals like zinc are linked to a very broad range of enzyme systems and clinical effects.  It is far too easy on a clinical basis to assign biochemical explanations to clinically observed phenomena, without due consideration to the predominant biochemical pathways affected.  Zinc though having broad affects, has significant rate limiting effects on immune functions. 
Magnesium has a number of clinical effects but its predominant clinical effects are in glycogenolysis roles.  Consequently, it is easy to se why zinc causes satiety can reduced appetite, but why there may be a harmful side to this clinical effect. 

The clinical effects of these minerals though broadly based, from simple theory would be expected to have significant effects on the body’s function only in very specific “rate limited: areas
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It can be hard for many people to know what to do to help themselves.
The real world is a confusing place. Often its hard to see what's going on.

Dr. Carl Pfeiffer's book: “Mental and Elementals Nutrients” : Views on Schizophrenia 

Dr. Pfeiffer’s book reviewed the extensive role of minerals in human illness.  This effect is observable in many clinical conditions that include not only schizophrenia, but also Minimal Brain Dysfunction, Hyperactivity, Autism, Childhood Schizophrenia and Dyslexia.  (To Quote the book).

To many patients and doctors, it seems surprising and difficult to accept that taking Minerals and perhaps Vitamins may actually make a difference to how ill a person may be or may become, with a condition such as schizophrenia. The current medical model suggests that schizophrenia results from a dysfunction in brain chemical receptors (such as dopamine receptors). In this type of model, there is no acknowledgement that minerals or vitamins should have any role to play in the progression or regression of a disease such as schizophrenia.

To summarise Dr. Pfeiffer's book's proposals in schizophrenia.  The original research proposed that schizophrenia could be divided in to three predominant types.

Each of these subgroups is associated with specific medical clinical symptoms as well as specific chemical abnormalities. Back To Nutrients Top
These results are summarised as follows:

 Histopenic

 Histadelic

 Pyroluric

 Paill Spectrum and Mental Disorders: What Does the Model Say?

In the Paill Spectrum model, the significance of nutrition and its effects on human mental illness lies in the way that nutrition makes the body change its workings.  The Paill Spectrum model definitely accepts that nutrition will change the progress of the Paill Spectrum infection.  The model would explain the above observations very simply.  Different levels of nutritional deficiency give very different risk profiles to Paill Spectrum affected patients.  This may result in altered patterns and extents of infection.

 This is true not only for the condition of schizophrenia, but also for the other conditions mentioned as having nutritionally related illness patterns.  I.e. As mentioned above: Minimal Brain Dysfunction, Hyperactivity, Autism, Childhood Schizophrenia, and Dyslexia. Back To Nutrients Top

 The Paill Spectrum model makes a number of further claims.  All these conditions and many others have the same underlying cause.  They will all show the same patterns of nutritionally triggered disease progression and regression.  The mental illnesses are associated with definite patterns of physical symptoms that are the Paill Spectrum pattern of symptoms and physical signs of illness.

Disease progression and regression can be mapped according to both changes in clinical markers of illness as well as changes in the Paill Spectrum blood tests.  The conditions are in fact all the same condition.  They differ only in their clinical presentations simply due to the age and extent of infection.  First wave Paill Spectrum infection occurring in younger patients, while third wave infections occur exclusively in older patients.  How young and how old is determined by the age and progression of infection, which in turn is affected by immunity, which in turn is affected by nutrition.  Different clinical syndromes exist at different ages, simply because the different sites of brain development predicate that different areas of the brain will be affected.

 The protocol for the treatment for all these conditions and many more, is the same.  There is one simple underlying cause with varying clinical symptoms and a varying expression.

 The Paill Spectrum model simply supplies a different explanation for the observations made by this researcher and many others.  The theory will also predict that unexpected clinical symptoms and signs of illness will be found in many of these patients.  Patients will develop characteristic illnesses as the infection progresses, in very characteristic timeframes.

 Paill Spectrum symptoms occur together and are rarely due to to other illness.  The response of the disease to treatment whether nutritional, antibiotic, or physical therapies is subtle, slow but definite if you just know where to look. Back To Nutrients Top

Could this theory of disease relate to why people are getting so fat?

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CD Book Information
The CD Books are not currently available. (Planned release date is early 2008). 
More information will be available on PaillSpectrum in Dr. Andrew Xxxxx’s two CD Books:

Accessing Information
Downloadable Information files (zip = pdf +mp3), are available directly through the web site. 
(File on the Download Page: approximately 12MB download). :-? :-O Back To Top

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The Paill Spectrum Disease Model has been developed by Dr. Andrew Xxxxx. It will be some time before the knowledge of the syndrome becomes independently tested and accepted. Disclaimer



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Zinc Therapies Comment:

 

Why Not Just Take A Multivitamin?

There is insufficient zinc in a multivitamin or multimineral to replace low zinc levels.  I recommend that every person with a low zinc level needs to take zinc for a few months to build up his or her level.

Multivitamins are important if you have wheat allergy.

Wheat allergy causes long term and difficult to treat vitamin and mineral absorption problems.  It is essential that every patient who has a zinc deficiency as part of a wheat allergy, (even a mild allergy), must take a multivitamin and multimineral tablet long term and regularly.

 

 

Zinc is normally present in foods such as:         

Beef, Oatmeal, Dark Chicken, Fish, Beef Liver, Bean, Tuna, Mushroom, Yeast, and Eggs.  I find it works more often to tell people to take a zinc tablet to fix their zinc than to eat different foods.

You should take a total daily dose of elemental zinc of 22 mg
(This may be modified under medical guidance)

 

I recommend 22mg elemental zinc tablets: Take One Tablet, Once a day.

Always take your zinc with food or before bed as zinc causes nausea if taken on an empty stomach for most people.

Check your zinc level in a blood test in 12  months.  Do not take any zinc tablets in the 24 hours before your test.

22mg of the element zinc is usually combined with chemical packing.  This chemical packing can take many forms such as:

Amino acid chelate, Gluconate, Chloride, or Sulphate and others. Back To Nutrients Top





Which Zinc?

220 mg of zinc as amino acid chelate is actually zinc plus packing.

This contains 22mg of the element zinc, (also called Elemental Zinc).

If you take an inadequate level of zinc, my experience shows me that your blood level will not rise.  The treatment will fail to help you.  It will be obvious on your next blood test.

 

 Problems?  If your zinc level is difficult to increase:

Finally, take iron and zinc tablets at different times as they interfere with each other’s absorption.











Need Medical Help?

Why do basic therapies like heat and sunshine
make such an impact on wellbeing?

Applying Heat to “unwell” parts of the body forms a surprisingly effective treatment for a variety of conditions. From simple aches and pains to conditions such as multiple sclerosis, many practitioners have used heat as a method of relieving discomfort and the symptoms of disease.

So What Conditions Might be Expected to React to Heat:

  1. Sore hands, especially if sore on awakening. Heat works when the pain seems to be generally felt throughout the hand, not specifically in the joints such as the first (proximal) row of knuckles. These patients wake up in the morning with hands that feel terrible and often are quite stiff in the morning, taking up to 15-30 minutes to “warm up”. The best and easiest way to apply heat to these hands is by using gloves. The patient puts the gloves on at bedtime and leaves them on all night, also being careful to keep their hands under the bed covers all night.  The response to treatment is quite obvious usually the next day. The relief only occurs in patients who have very specific hand problems. The patient will find that using this type of treatment is ether useful or it is not useful within a few days.
  2. Sore Elbows: e.g. tennis elbow or golfers elbow. Other conditions which would be expected to respond to similar treatments include: sore shoulders especially where the should tendons such as the bicipital tendons and / or the rotator cuff tendons are involved, Sore tendons at the back of the knee, sore tendon insertions at the base of the Fifth metatarsal at the side of the foot. For an elbow, use a doubled over sock over the region for as many hours per day as possible. Wear this night and day if possible. What these patients find is again a rapid improvement within the first few days. Complete cures are rare, though good treatment responses are indeed common.
  3. Multiple Sclerosis: I remember one doctor who had been diagnosed with this condition, and who subsequently did a lot of medical literature research on the subject. He discovered that there was good support for the use of sunshine, heat and nutritional therapy including zinc in the management of his condition. He began to sun bake daily, changed his diet to maximize zinc and fish oil intake and exercised a lot more often in an effort to minimize the likelihood of his having a relapse. This treatment regime has an extensive parallel with the Paill Spectrum disease model.
  4. Tiredness and Fatigue: Many people espouse the use of Saunas as a method of getting healthy and feeling better.
  5. Febrile convulsions in children occur in the context of an illness producing an increased temperature. There is a considerable medical focus in bringing the temperature down, but the significance of what is occurring may well be lost. It appears likely that a fever or temperature causes increased immune system activation as many of the body’s natural chemical processes including immune processes occur faster at slightly raised temperatures. It is important to note that clinically slight temperature rises of say 3-4 degrees are effective in enhancing the immune response.
  6. Vaccination is often blamed for triggering childhood conditions such as autism or ADD / ADHD. It may well be that what is occurring is immune system activation triggered by the vaccine or by the temperature associated with the vaccine.
  7. Insulin Dependent Diabetes: There is some concern that perhaps these patients may develop their illness following a febrile illness or a viral infection.
  8. Atherosclerotic feet with bizarre burning or irritative symptoms. Improving heat flow to the lower limbs often improves these symptoms. Generally if patients are unable to heat up a limb by restricting heat loss through clothes or socks, I recommend that they use a heater or electric blanket to supple gentle even heat into the lower limb. I have found that Hot Water bottles, are not a safe treatment. Every year some patients inadvertently burn themselves. The heat is not of long enough duration and not even enough to make a difference. Back To Nutrients Top

In the above examples, there are a number of principles evident. Elevations of body temperature such as with a fever are likely to cause an enhancement of the body immune response. This can have beneficial or harmful effects depending on the patient’s illness history. Body temperature rises are probably most effective in relieving illness where the illness occurs in poorly perfused or cooler parts of the body. Temperature rises are likely to improve blood flow and hence oxygenation of some body tissues. This can have favourable effects on tendons, anterior chamber of the eye and related eye condition, distal body parts such as feet where blood flow is affected by arterial disease. 

Heat therapy often is more useful at relieving symptoms or illness when combined with other treatments such as nutritional therapy. Back To Nutrients Top











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