The Role of Infections in Mental Illness
The article
will print when it is fully downloaded.
You can view many more useful articles and order online at https://www.regenerativenutrition.com
Customer Service From UK - 0845 200 8544 International - 0044 845 200 8544
The Role of Infections in Mental Illness
by Frank Strick, Clinical Research Director
THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR INFECTIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS (RIIMI)
Call 1800 6992466 then press pound (#) 8314255555
E-mail: riimiusa@gmail.com
San Francisco, USA
Other Notes: They serve clients world-wide via phone consultations.
In considering an infectious etiology to any chronic mental illness there are at least four categories to consider. First are those infections already recognized to induce psychiatric symptoms.
While the psychiatric effects of these infections are known to the medical field, they are rarely screened for if the initial presentation is made to a mental health professional. Moreover, the significance of some of these infections may date back to prenatal development. Research done at the John 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 later develop schizophrenia. And in the US, Europe and Japan, birth clusters of individuals who develop schizophrenia later in life closely mirror the seasonal distribution of Ixodes ticks at the time of conception (Lyme disease).
Second are those parasitic infections such as neurocysticercosis where the brain is directly invaded by the infective agent through a well-established, imageable (visible on brain scan) mechanism (cysts, lesions, cerebral swelling etc.) Signs of psychiatric disease (depression and psychosis) were found in over 65% of neurocysticercosis cases (caused by a tapeworm whose incidence in the US is rising due to demographic increases in foreign immigrant populations.) [Ref: Forlenza] While the mechanisms for psychiatric manifestations are easy to demonstrate when brain tissue is directly affected, there are also multiple documented reports in the literature of psychiatric symptoms associated with other parasites like giardiasis, ascaris (roundworm), trichinae (cause of trichinosis), and Lyme borrelia and viruses like borna virus. Documentation also exists of these psychiatric symptoms resolving when the underlying hidden infection is treated.
Next are those parasitic, bacterial and viral infections like toxoplasmosis and strep where a strong statistical link to mental illness has been demonstrated but research is underway to establish a causal connection. In humans acute infection with toxoplasmosis gondii can cause brain lesions, changes in personality and symptoms of psychosis including delusions and auditory hallucinations. Researchers at Rockefeller University and NIMH have suggested that after streptococcal infection some children may be at increased risk for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Toxoplasma gondii can alter behavior and neurotransmitter function. Since 1953, eighteen out of nineteen studies of T. gondii antibodies in persons with schizophrenia and other severe psychiatric disorders have reported a higher percentage of T. gondii antibodies in the affected persons. (For example, in one large study toxoplasmosis infection was twice as common in mentally handicapped patients as in healthy controls and in a recent German study of "individuals with first episode schizophrenia compared to matched controls, 42% of the former compared to just 11% of the latter had antibodies to toxoplasma").
Other studies have shown that antipsychotic drugs like Thorazine, Haldol and Clozapine inhibit viral replication and that the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with recent-onset schizophrenia shows a significant increase in reverse transcriptase (an enzyme) activity - which is an important component of infectious retroviruses (a type of virus). Furthermore, when the CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) from these patients was used to inoculate a New World monkey cell line there was a tenfold increase in reverse transcriptase activity which suggests the presence of a replicating virus. Malhotra has demonstrated the absence of CCR5-32 homozygotes (specific matching genetic codes) in over 200 schizophrenic patients - which dramatically increases susceptibility to retroviral infection. (Ref: F.Yee).
It is research like this that has led Johns Hopkins virologist Robert Yolken and psychiatry professor and former special assistant to the Director of the National Institute for Mental Health Dr. E. Fuller Torrey to believe that toxoplasmosis is one of several infectious agents that causes most cases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The idea is not new. In fact, as far back as 1922 the famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger hypothesized that schizophrenia was "in most instances the byproduct of viral encephalitis." Torrey notes that in the late nineteenth century schizophrenia and bipolar disorder went from being rare diseases to relatively common ones at the same time that cat ownership became popular. And Yolken designed a retrospective study of twenty-five hundred families showing that mothers of children who later developed psychoses were 4.5 times more likely to have antibodies to toxoplasmosis than the mothers of healthy controls. Due to the frequency of cat ownership, a large percentage of the US population (up to 50%) has been exposed to toxoplasmosis but most immunocompetent carriers remain asymptomatic until another immunological burden such as HIV or a separate parasite weakens the host defenses and precipitates pathogenic expression. That is what makes interpretation of the chronic state so tricky and at the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness we make sure to try to identify any parasitic coinfections before deciding on an appropriate course of treatment.
Finally, while toxoplasmosis gets a lot of attention due to Torrey's and Yolken's pioneering studies and the known mechanism of brain lesions, there are many other infective agents that may not target the brain specifically but can severely affect mental function through the cumulative downstream consequences of chronic infection. While the importance of this link in the etiopathogenesis of mental illness is rarely recognized, these focal and systemic infections are very common and their psychiatric effects often severe. (Parasites are the most common causes of mortality and morbidity in the world.) In this nonspecific category are scores of parasites, protozoa, helminths, bacteria, fungi and viruses which, if not directly invading and disabling brain tissue and neurotransmitter function, do so indirectly by depleting the host of essential nutrients, interfering with enzyme functions, and releasing a massive load of waste products - enteric poisons and toxins which disrupt brain metabolism. (A single mature adult tapeworm can lay a million eggs a day and roundworms, which infect about twenty-five per cent of the world's population, lay 200,000 daily).
Even for those clinicians who recognize the devastating psychological effects that chronic intestinal, focal and even dental infections can have on normal brain function, accurate diagnosis presents formidable challenges. In fact some standard parasite stool test procedures identify less than ten percent of active infections and even the "politically correct" holistic specialty labs miss many infections that are nondetectable in fecal specimens, have inconsistent shedding patterns, are extra intestinal or otherwise hard to identify. For example, according to the World Health Organization, over two billion people are infected with worms, yet rarely will they show up in stool assays.
This article may be reprinted by anyone if the RIIMI clinic contact info is listed.
See Also: Healthy, Potent and Effective Methods of Eliminating Infections and Helping the Immune System
Order page for Deep Cell Detox for the elimination of heavy metals
And Health implications of heavy metal toxicity