Hi J_9,
I just read your qualifications, and now I realize where you are coming from. You seem to be studying nursing, so as a nurse it would not be prudent for you to express any interest in
"alternative mental health". Alternative medicine is different from conventional medicine!
You are right I was asked by the director of Corrective Services to stop teaching Nutritional Medicine to my clients, on the instructions of the director or the ANZCP (Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists). Any nondrug therapy for mental illness appears to be a threat to the psychiatric profession, who are politically well organized and control the mental health industry. They control most of the prisons and hospitals. They are closely tied and financed by the pharmaceutical corporations. This is a political issue not one of science.
But conventional psychiatrists are not all in agreement with conventional treatments. A recent study showed that about 40% of patients with mental illness gain SOME benefit from drug therapy and/or psychotherapy, leaving about 60% of patients with treatment resistant mental illness.
See:
Beyond Efficacy: The STAR*D Trial, Am J Psychiatry 163:5-7, January 2006 by Insel, TR (2006),
This is just not good enough. People who have failed with conventional treatment tend to come to this discussion board asking questions, they really should ask their therapists. Why cannot their therapists help them? They in fact are asking for alternatives, because conventional therapy has failed them.
If you in your nursing profession would express scientific opinion supported by scientists in the "Alternative Mental Health" community you too would not last long as a professional nurse. Most of the evidence come from:
www.alternativementalhealth.com
And many others.
I have worked in the mental health industry most of my professional life, as a nurse, counsellor, drug counsellor, so I am familiar with what is going on. Please try to inform yourself on the politics of medicine and keep on open mind. Sometimes you have to have a critical look at the practice of medicine and where it is going to and why.
Read:
Death by Medicine by Gary Null
I also read that you worked in the insurance industry concerning malpractice in medicine. Thus you may have some bias against what you may regard as "quackery" and be somewhat suspicious of them, if not paranoid.
You seem to be asking for "evidence" from independent research. I wish you were just as demanding of conventional psychological treatment, which is mainly based on unsubstantiated psychological theories. But I agree science is evidenced based, and therefore we have a file called
Research Evidence for Hypoglycemia, which you obviously have not read. It is a collection of quotations made by scientists.
Then you criticize me for giving thousands of Google references on the connection between hypoglycemia and depression. How far do you want to go to feed your skepticism and your bias against modern science. What makes you think the Google references are invalid? Have you ever studied Nutritional Medicine or Nutritional Biochemistry? I have.
Maybe you just want to state that you are not interested in "alternative mental health" and that is perfectly all right. But then don't attack people in an
ad hominem fashion, whenever you don't like somebody's ideas that do not fit in with yours. I don't mind people asking genuine questions - and there are many of them - but it is somewhat tiring to shift the argument to a personal level (about the messengers instead of the messages), instead of the issues at hand. If you don't like me, tough luck. I am interested in ideas and helping people with mental illness.
Here is some more scholarly studies that support the hypoglycemic connection:
Studies Showing connection between Depression and Insulin Resistance
Also read:
Werbach,M.R.(1991), NUTRITIONAL INFLUENCES ON MENTAL ILLNESS, A Sourcebook of Clinical Research, Third Line Pres, Inc.Tarzana. Cal. full of research.
Budd, M.L.(1981), LOW BLOOD SUGAR (HYPOGLYCEMIA), Thorsons publishers Ltd.
Hale F,Margen S & Rabak D(1982), "Postprandial hypoglycemia and 'psychological' symptoms", BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY,1982,(Jan).17.1.125-130
Meiers,R.L.(1973), "Relative hypoglycemia in schizophrenia", in Hawkins, D. & Pauling, L.(Eds)(1973), ORTHOMOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY, W.H.Freeman & Co. San Francisco
Plesman,J.(1984), "The behavioural aspects of hypoglycemia as tested by N.B.I.", PROBATION & PAROLE OFFICERS' ASSOC. JOURNAL, 1984, 1-23.
Poulos,C.J. Stoddard,D. & Carron,K.(1976), ALCOHOLISM, STRESS AND HYPOGLYCEMIA, Davis Publishing;Davis Cal.
Salzer,H.M.(1966), "Relative hypoglycemia as a cause of neuropsychiatric illness", J.NATIONAL MED.ASSOC.58-1,12-17 Jan,1966
Samra, George(2004), THE HYPOGLYCEMIC CONNECTION II, One Step Allergies, Sydney
Virkunen,Matti(U.of Helsinki)(1982), "Reactive hypoglycemic tendency among habitually violent offenders: etc", NEUROPSYCHOBIOLOGY,1982,(Jan-Feb)8.(1)35-40
“An important scientific innovation rarely, makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiar with the idea from the beginning.”
Max Planck (1858-1947) German physicist and Nobel laureate