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SCHIZOPHRENIA THE ADRENOCHROME HYPOTHESIS The triggers that increase the negative impacts of genetic aberrations linked to schizophrenia have become increasingly more common in the industrialised world, yet most sufferers of this illness can be helped with an eight-step program. But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold Ina tiny ivory cell God's heaven and hell. THE WRONG ANSWER ope John Paul II wrote in a letter in 2002 that "It may be said that a society shows itself just to the extent that it meets the needs of all its members, and the quality of its civilisation is determined by the way in which it protects its weakest mem- bers".' If this is the case, then we should be judged harshly. In most "civilised" societies the mentally ill, mainly consisting of schizophrenics, are homeless, sleep in parks, under bridges or in dumpsters, beg muttering in the streets, or, because of their irra- tional crimes, fill our prisons. Schizophrenia may be the cruellest disorder, afflicting "...young adults, often beginning insidiously and progressing until the ambitions, potentials, and hopes of early years are disregarded in disarray. In their place lie broken thoughts, inappropriate or stunted emo- tions, and internal voices or other misperceptions that can make existence a living hell."* Unfortunately, it is not rare. Schizophrenia is the commonest serious mental illness of the developed world. In the USA, it accounts for some 24 per cent of all admissions to mental hospitals.’ Initially, the disease is often episodic with acute phases interspaced with remissions, but it often becomes chronic. In his extremely interesting book, The Madness of Adam and Eve, Horrobin‘ makes this point: While in familial and personality terms the problem is devastating, in biochemical terms the problem cannot be very serious. After all, the young person functioned near normally for fifteen, twenty-five or thirty-five years before becoming ill. Moreover, all schizophrenic patients vary in the severity of their illness, often, as documented earlier, becoming near normal while the body temperature is elevated. The fundamental biochemical problem, therefore, cannot be too serious and must be reversible. This is an extremely intelligent and encouraging characterisation. It seems fair to ask, however, if the problem is so biochemically simple, why have countless thousands of doc- tors and scientists spent billions of dollars over more than 200 years in endless, unsuccess- ful attempts to discover the aetiology of schizophrenia? The logical answer to this question must be that they are trying to hammer jigsaw puz- zle pieces into spaces where they do not fit. Conventional drug treatment rests, to a large degree, on the "dopamine hypothesis"; that is, on the belief that excess dopamine accentu- ates and decreased dopamine reduces the positive or hot symptoms of schizophrenia.’ The evidence for high levels of dopamine in schizophrenia sufferers is poor, ° and Parkinsonism (the mimicking of Parkinson's disease) has occurred frequently in patients treated for this hypothesised excess. Since Parkinson's ‘ase is known to stem from a dopamine deficiency, it seems likely that drugs causing a similar illness in schizophrenics are creating a lack of this neurotransmitter rather than correcting an excess of it. by Harold D. Foster, PhD © 2003 Professor, Department of Geography University of Victoria PO Box 3050 Victoria, BC, V8W 3P5, Canada Email: hfoster@mail.geog.uvic.ca Website: http:/Awww.hdfoster.com Email: hfoster@mail.geog.uvic.ca Website: http://www.hdfoster.com APRIL — MAY 2004 NEXUS + 27 _ Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) www.nexusmagazine.com