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B Vitamins Reduce Schizophrenia Symptoms, Study Finds (newsmax.com)
A new study published in the journal Psychological Medicine finds that high doses of B vitamins reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia. Researchers found that using B vitamins, including B6, inositol, and B12 as an adjunctive with antipsychotics significantly improved symptoms of the debilitating condition. Newsmax reports: For the new study, researchers identified 18 clinical trials with a combined total of 832 patients receiving antipsychotic treatment for schizophrenia. They found that B-vitamin interventions which used higher dosages or combined several vitamins were consistently effective for reducing psychiatric symptoms, whereas those which used lower doses were ineffective. The evidence also suggested that B-vitamin supplements were most beneficial when they were added to medicine regimens early after diagnosis.
That didn't seem to have worked for Mr Kurzweil, though.
... to a traumatic childhood. There is no such things as a 'mental condition' known as 'schizophrenia', it is just a description for a set of behaviours that are viewed as abnormal - ALL caused by traumatic events during childhood. But even thinking about the possibility of this being true would mean actually facing your feelings, and you can't do that...
Megavitamins and orthomolecular medicine have a scientific basis that is more targetable than this indicates. Merely they've been under "fake news" attacks since at least the 1960s, when the psychiatric establishment of that time attacked with rigged results. Then the severely iatrogenic oncologists of the 70s and 80s attacked.
Both of these self anointed establishments' actions and statements then, when viewed by today's information, to me look like quacks with criminal intent
yeah right adjunctive! First find me someone who has used antipsychotics that doesn't relapse into a far worse state within 12 months.
but a balanced diet reduce many symptoms.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
They hide the microphones in the pills! Don't do it!
From the article:
"Researchers found that adding B vitamins, including B6, inositol, and B12 significantly improved symptoms of the debilitating condition."
"They found that B-vitamin interventions which used higher dosages or combined several vitamins were consistently effective for reducing psychiatric symptoms, whereas those which used lower doses were ineffective."
So which B Vitamins exactly and in what dosages?
Are there side effects at those dosages?
Is always the answer regardless the question
Pooled effects showed that vitamin B supplementation (including B6, B8 and B12) reduced psychiatric symptoms significantly more than control conditions [g = 0.508, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01–1.01, p = 0.047, I2 = 72.3%]. Similar effects were observed among vitamin B RCTs which used intention-to-treat analyses (g = 0.734, 95% CI 0.00–1.49, p = 0.051).
The confidence interval indicates the level of uncertainty around the measure of effect (precision of the effect estimate). Confidence intervals are used because a study recruits only a small sample of the overall population so by having an upper and lower confidence limit we can infer that the true population effect lies between these two points. Most studies report the 95% confidence interval (95%CI). If the confidence interval crosses 1 that implies there is no difference between arms of the study. As far as I can remember.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
I've always been in two minds whether to take vitamins or not...
A B-Complex supplement is a good idea anyway, as B vitamins get peed out and don't stay in the body for too long.
So it is really hard to end up with not enough of them over a very short period of time and minor changes in diet can mean missing out.
B-12 is also depleted by certain medications like Metformin, one of the main Type 2 Diabetes treatments. If you take Metformin, you are automatically low on B-12 and you will need to take more every day. You cannot eat enough food to reach the level you need.
Costco's Kirkland B-Complex is a very good one and packs more punch for less cost than other more common grocery store brands. But even with that, you would still need a B-12 standalone. Costco sells that too.
Sig for hire.
Weirdly, another study showed high niacin in energy drinks was hurting health of people consuming more than 2 in a 2-day period.
Can lead to hepatitis over longer periods.
And even killing in excessive levels.
B vitamins are indeed complex.
And is smoking just a way of getting nicotinic acid as a byproduct (aka Niacin aka Vitamin B3)?
One is the basic issue that, without proper understanding of how one 'instance' of schizophrenia differs from another, and the degree to which 'what works' differs from both person to person, and depending upon the particular details of the 'instance' of schizophrenia (I use the class/instance analogue, since people on /. are used to it: schizophrenia is kind of an abstract base class, paranoid schizophrenia is an abstract subclass of it, and a particular person's schizophrenia is an instance of some subclass of schizophrenia, possibly inheriting from various 'well known' forms.)
Doing this is hard, and will generally show mental health research in a far poorer light, and of course is not required of current researchers, which is why it is hardly ever thought of, let alone mentioned. But not doing this is akin to the schoolboy error of omitting experimental error, and ignoring the question of how well the subject of a study fits the assumed theoretical model.
So far, the degree to which two 'instances' of schizophrenia can be thought of as the 'same thing' has yet to be properly shown (that is, 'same' to a sufficient degree that it makes sense to talk of 'treatments for schizophrenia', rather than 'treatment for a particular schizophrenia'). And almost all research into treatment of schizophrenia effectively already assumes this, together with strong implicit assumptions as to the variability of people and conditions which attract the label 'schizophrenia'. The effect, from the point of view of trials such as mentioned in TFA, is that results are averaged across all instances (and from the point of view of what 'the literature' appears to show, biased according to what is and is not published -- another source of error that must be taken into account when inferring efficacy from surveys of the literature). The 'Emperor's New Clothes' problem in mainstream psychiatry is that nobody wants to see what their 'emperor' is actually wearing (i.e. bugger all).
Until we get it into our heads that labels like 'schizophrenia' do _not_ tell us what a particular problem is, but merely tell us that certain symptoms have been observed by qualified psychiatric professionals, (and essentially nothing more), and that details as to the variability of one instance of a psychiatric illness to another, and the variability from one person to another, are properly taken into account, trusting current research is a game of Russian Roulette, and, thanks to the antics of Big Pharma, the 'research literature' has been turned into an 'academic medical shopping channel'.
End rant.
its a catchall bullshit thing when doctors dont know. its based solely on pateints self-reported systems which are very easily misinterpreted by psychiatrists
I recall that many, many years ago vitamin B12 was recommended as a rescue for a bad LSD trip. I don't know of any actual studies that tested its effectiveness though.
Here's what the abstract says:
"There were no overall effects from antioxidant vitamins, inositol or dietary minerals on psychiatric symptoms."
====> Never trust a study that hides behind a paywall. ====
I just read the study in question.
It was a meta-analysis of multiple previous studies. Almost all of the studies used the positive and negative PANSS scales, which ranks severity of symptoms on a a 49 point scale. The strong majority of the included studies showed no difference between vitamin supplementation and placebo. A couple of the outliers shows about a 1 point improvement on the 49 point scale with the vitamins.
Looking at the whole of the paper, it seems that most studies do no support the use of vitamins in the treatment of schizophrenia. There have been a couple of studies which should a small, statistically significant improvement with B vitamins, although it's questionable whether this improvement is clinically significant. Given the many studies which showed no difference from placebo, it's also possible that the positive studies simply represent publication bias.
While it's unlikely to hurt anyone to take some vitamins, nothing in any of the studies or meta-analysis suggests that vitamins can effectively treat schizophrenia.
A vegetarian finally admitted that they still need to take vitamin supplements.
The Dietician Adelle Davis Said This in the 1970's In her books, describing how B vitamins shortage can induce schizophrenia and how to treat it.