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Orthomolecular medicine or optimum nutrition emphasizes the use of natural substances found in a healthy diet such as vitamins, dietary minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids, essential fatty acids, dietary fiber and intestinal short chain fatty acids (SCFA) in the prevention and treatment of diseases. Orthomolecular medicine focuses on the role of proper nutrition in relation to health. Optimum nutrition asserts that many typical diets are insufficient for long term health. Nutrition comes first in orthomolecular medical diagnoses and treatment, drug treatment is used only for specific indications.

Orthomolecular medicine is defined as the provision of the optimum molecular constitution, especially the optimum concentration of substances that are normally present in the body, for the purposes of treating disease and preserving health.

Linus Pauling proposed the term "orthomolecular medicine" in 1968 in the journal Science. Orthomolecular treatments are utilized in both complementary and alternative medicine fields and, to a lesser degree, in conventional medicine. The field of orthomolecular psychiatry deals with the use of orthomolecular medicine to treat psychiatric problems.

Method

In orthomolecular medicine, diseases are assumed to originate from multiple nonspecific causes, congenital and acquired. These causes give rise to biochemical aberrations, the accumulation of which results in symptoms and signs, from which the perception of a disease state follows. Clinically-apparent diseases may be described as fuzzy sets of biochemical anomalies. Clearly, it is advantageous for physicians to recognize and to correct patients’ small sets of biochemical anomalies at an early stage, before expansion of the anomalies results in recognizable diseases.

In practice, the orthomolecular doctor relies heavily on laboratory testing. In addition to standard clinical chemistries, orthomolecular doctors now employ a wide range of sophisticated laboratory analysis, including those for amino acids, organic acids, vitamins and minerals, functional vitamin status, hormones, immunology, microbiology, and gastrointestinal function. Many of the newer tests have not been accepted by conventional medicine.

Orthomolecular therapy consists in attempting to provide optimal amounts of substances normal to the body, most commonly by oral administration. In the early days of orthomolecular medicine, this usually meant high-dose, single-agent nutrient therapy. However, some ailments require the withholding of normal substances. Thus, "optimal" is a matter for clinical judgment. Most often, the orthomolecular practitioner employs multiple vital substances--amino acids, enzymes, non-essential nutrients, hormones, vitamins, minerals, etc.--in a therapeutic effort to restore those (or derivative substances) to levels statistically normal for healthy young persons.

Often supplementation with relatively large doses of vitamins is given and the name megavitamin therapy has become popularly associated with the field. Megavitamin therapy is the administration of large amounts of vitamins, often many times greater than the recommended dietary allowance (RDA). Short chained fatty acids are produced by fermentation of dietary fiber in the colon, then absorbed and utilized, often aided with a combination of probiotics, prebiotics and "glyconutrients" added to the diet.

The substances may be administered by changing the diet to emphasize certain elements high in nutrients, dietary supplementation with tablets, or intravenous injection of nutrient solutions.

Criticism

Some health professionals see orthomolecular medicine as an encouragement for individuals to dose themselves with large amounts of vitamins and other nutritients in an unsupervised way, which could be damaging to health in extreme cases. Risks include peripheral neuropathy, ataxia, congenital abnormalities or sponaneous abortion in case of pregnancy, gouty arthritis or jaundice.

BC Cancer Agency of Canada gives this summary description of orthomolecular treatments: Megavitamin and orthomolecular therapies are unproven methods considered dangerous by mainstream scientists.

Popularity

A survey released in May 2004] by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), what was used, and why it was used in the United States by adults age 18 years and over during 2002. According to this recent survey, mega-vitamin therapy was the 9th most commonly used CAM therapy (2.8%) in the United States during 2002 . Consistent with previous studies, this study found that the majority of individuals (54.9%) used CAM in conjunction with conventional medicine (page 6). "The fact that only 11.8% of adults sought care from a licensed or certified CAM practitioner suggests that most individuals who use CAM self-prescribe and/or self-medicate." (page 6).

Relation to conventional medicine

Orthomolecular medicine claims an evolving nutritional pharmacology that overlaps between natural medicine and conventional medicine. The International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine has many conventionally trained doctors among its members and authors.

However, many conventional medical physicians regard most orthomolecular therapies as insufficiently proven for clinical use. Proponents contend that many conventional doctors have little familiarity with the detailed concepts and clinical background of orthomolecular medicine. Conventional medicine disputes the validity of most orthomolecular therapies based on the lack of authoritative studies and the results from some disputed studies. Proponents note that the disputed studies used much lower doses, frequencies, duration or assimilable forms than they recommend or other special conditions, contamination, populations or statistical treatment often not clearly published in the documentation.

The relationship of conventional medicine to Orthomolecular proponents has been sometimes technically adversarial. Sometimes proponents claim partisan politics, pharmaceutical industry influence, and competitive considerations to be significant factors. Some other orthomolecular therapies have been long recognized and officially sanctioned within Europe and Japan.

Orthomolecular doctors

• Glen Dettman
• Abram Hoffer
• Archie Kalokerinos
• Fred R. Klenner
• Julian Whitaker

Orthomolecular scientists

• Irwin Stone
• Linus Pauling

References

1. Definition of Orthomolecular medicine at www.orthomed.org Accessed June 2006.
2. PMID: 3153129
3. PMID: 3737019
4. Barrett S:Orthomolecular therapy, http://www.quackwatch.org/
5. Vitamin Therapy, Megadose / Orthomolecular Therapy, BC Cancer Agency, http://www.bccancer.bc.ca
6. nccam.nih.gov
7. nccam.nih table 1 on page 8

• Abram Hoffer (1998) Putting It All Together: The New Orthomolecular Nutrition, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0879836334
• Abram Hoffer, M.D. with Linus Pauling (2004) Healing Cancer: Complementary Vitamin & Drug Treatments, CCNM Press, ISBN 1897025114
• Pauling, Linus (1986) How to Live Longer and Feel Better, W. H. Freeman and Company, ISBN 0-380-70289-4
• Roger J. Williams, Dwight K. Kalita (1979) Physician's Handbook on Orthomolecular Medicine, Keats Publishing, ISBN 0879831995
• Melvyn R. Werbach, Jeffrey Moss (1999) Textbook of Nutritional Medicine, Third Line Press, ISBN 0961855096
• Joseph E. Pizzorno, Jr., Michael T. Murray (November 2005) Textbook of Natural Medicine, 3rd edition, Churchill Livingstone, ISBN 0443073007 · 2368pp

See also

• Life extension
• List of life extension related topics
• Megavitamin therapy

External links

• Orthomolecular Medicine
• Orthomolecular Medicine Online
• DoctorYourself.com - Personal site of Andrew Saul PhD, Contributing Editor for the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.
• Analysis of Megavitamin Therapy
• Orthomolecular Therapy, a critical analysis by Stephen Barrett

• Orthomolecular medicine