Orthomolecular Medicine Health Article

Definition

Orthomolecular medicine is the prevention and treatment of disease by administering nutritional supplements. The patient's state of health, external or environmental factors and quality of diet are taken into account. The architect of orthomolecular medicine, Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling, coined the term in 1968. The aim of orthomolecular medicine is not merely to eliminate disease, but to aim for "optimum health."

Origins

Linus Carl Pauling was born in 1901 in Portland, Oregon. He published his first scientific paper at the age of 22. In 1925, he graduated summa cum laude from the California Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in chemistry. He was to remain at this institute for the next 38 years.

Though by no means the first to investigate the properties of the nutrients contained in foods, or the first to consider the medical application of nutritional supplements, his contribution to our understanding of how nutrients work in our bodies and how supplements can affect our health, has not been matched, either before or since. It was not until 1966, after a long and distinguished career, that he changed direction in response to a letter from Irwin Stone and began to research the properties of micronutrients.

In 1970, Pauling published Vitamin C and the Common Cold, which established vitamin C as a favorite and effective remedy for colds and flu. In 1973, he founded the Institute of Orthomolecular Medicine, a non-profit research organization, with Arthur B. Robinson and Keene Dimick. The institute later became the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine. In the years that followed, Pauling published many research papers and books detailing his findings in the field of orthomolecular medicine until his death in 1994.

As a result of Pauling's research, orthomolecular medicine has become a specialized branch of alternative medicine, and its realm of application has widened to include not only cancer and other diseases, but many mental illnesses, including schizophrenia.

Benefits

In summarizing their philosophy, practitioners of orthomolecular medicine cite Hippocrates's watchword which was "First, do no harm." With their policy of rectifying nutrition first and then administering supplements in treating disease, they feel that they already have an advantage over allopathic methods such as chemotherapy, drug therapy, surgery and radiotherapy, which orthomolecular practitioners believe have potentially disastrous effects on the human organism. Despite the fact that when taken in "mega-doses" nutritional supplements have been known to cause harm, they can have a significantly lower potential for toxicity than allopathic drugs.

Orthomolecular practitioners recommend that patients improve their lifestyle and eating habits to consolidate benefits felt from the supplements themselves. Many of their "discoveries" have now become more or less common knowledge, for example the fact that a combination of vitamin C and zinc can speed the departure of a virus—particularly a cold—by many days.

Orthomolecular medicine can be of benefit to anyone for a wide range of illnesses and symptoms.

Some illnesses which have been treated with orthomolecular medicine are:

• depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia
• Raynaud's disease, heart problems, and therosclerosis
• digestive disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, diverticulitis, obeisity, and endometriosis
• chronic fatigue syndrome
• heavy metal toxicity and radiation sickness
• osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
• infertility and other reproductive disorders
• high blood pressure
• asthma and other respiratory problems
• eczema and other skin disorders
• candidiasis
• cancer, AIDS, and other immune system problems
• neural tube defects in the fetus.

Description

The basic concept of orthomolecular medicine is that according to their genetic makeup, and other factors such as environment, stress levels, and levels of nutrition, individuals will have nutritional needs that are peculiar to themselves alone; no two people will be alike in this respect. Consequently, what will cause illness for one person, will produce good health in another.

Many degenerative diseases and even mental abnormalities are quite possibly the result of biochemical imbalances. Linus Pauling's research demonstrated that all illness and disease can be treated to some extent with nutritional supplements, such as vitamins, amino acids, trace minerals, electrolytes, and fatty acids.

Theoretically, fresh food that is of high quality should provide all the nutrients necessary for good health. However, the depletion of nutrients in soil result from over-use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers and intensive farming practices also means a gradual decline in the levels of nutrients in produce. Orthomolecular practitioners, therefore, recommend that laboratory tests should be conducted to assess nutritional status so that possible areas of insufficiency may be addressed with the use of supplements.