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MICRO-ORGANISMS AND MENTAL ILLNESS MICRO-ORGANISMS AND MENTAL ILLNESS Many mental illnesses are the result of infection by micro-organisms including bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi, but they can be dramatically improved when these invaders are eliminated. I'm going to give my psychoanalyst one more year, then I'm going to Lourdes. — Woody Allen sychological treatment of chronic "mental illnesses" is often lengthy and of limited efficacy. Carolyn Raser was a healthy, energetic and upbeat psychologist who delighted in world travel and adventure. Yet after a trip to Bhutan in 2002, she returned to her home in California with severe depression, exhaustion and joints so swollen she could not open her hotel room door. Her third physician finally diagnosed her with rheumatoid arthritis and put her on multiple drugs, but the depression, lethargy and exhaustion persisted, even after nearly 100 subsequent treatments from acupuncturists, chi- ropractors and rehabilitation specialists. She had spent a small fortune and was feeling quite desperate and discouraged when she heard about a researcher at the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness and decided to give him a call. After interviewing her, the researcher suggested a work-up for parasites and digestive disorders, which revealed the previously undetected presence of three protozoan parasites and a compromised secretory IGA system. Three weeks later, after following his sugges- tions for eliminating the infections, her depression and chronic exhaustion were gone and her energy and zest for life had returned, just in time to help her daughter with the delivery of her new baby. When told of her results, he quipped: "The road to health is paved with good intestines." FOUR TYPES OF INFECTIONS In considering an infectious aetiology to any chronic or acute mental illness, there are at least four categories to consider. ¢ First are those infections already recognised to induce psychiatric symptoms. These include pneumonia, urinary tract infection, sepsis, malaria, legionnaire's disease, syphilis, chlamydia, typhoid, diphtheria, HIV, rheumatic fever and herpes (Chuang). While the psy- chiatric sequelae to these infections are noncontroversial, even so they are rarely screened for if the initial presentation is made to a mental health professional. Moreover, the signifi- cance of some of these infections may date back to prenatal development. Research done at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2001 found that mothers with evidence of herpes simplex type 2 infection at the time of pregnancy had children almost six times more likely to develop schizophrenia later (schizophrenia develops at different ages, but usually some time after puberty). And in the USA, Europe and Japan, the birth excesses of those individuals who develop schizophrenia later in life closely mirror the seasonal distribution of Lxodes ticks (implicated in Lyme disease) at the time of conception. * Second are those parasitic infections such as neurocysticercosis, where the brain is directly invaded by the infective agent through a well-established imagable mechanism (cysts, lesions, encephalitis, cerebral swelling, etc.). Signs of psychiatric disease (depres- sion and psychosis) were found in over 65% of cases of neurocysticercosis (caused by a tapeworm whose incidence in the USA is rising due to demographic increases in foreign immigrant populations) (Forlenza). While the mechanisms for psychiatric manifestations are easy to demonstrate when brain tissue is directly affected, there are also multiple reports in the literature of psychiatric by Frank Strick © 2004 Clinical Research Director The Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness Santa Cruz, California Email: riimi@gawab.com JUNE — JULY 2004 NEXUS + 37 WHAT'S REALLY BUGGING YOU? by Frank Strick © 2004 Email: riimi@gawab.com www.nexusmagazine.com