OVERLOOKED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MENTAL SYMPTOMS

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THE OVERLOOKED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MENTAL

SYMPTOMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.

September 13, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

 

Psychiatric disease should be diagnosed only after careful exclusion

of medical conditions that could produce the patients symptoms.

Unfortunately very few mental health care providers are aware of the

multitude of circumstances in which mental symptoms are precipitated

by an infectious illness. A valuable clue that a mental problem may be

infectious rather than psychiatric is sudden onset in a previously

stable individual.

 

Dr. Paul Fink, past president of the American Psychiatric Association,

has acknowledged that every psychiatric disorder in the Psychiatric

Diagnostic Symptoms Manual IV (DSM-!V) can be caused by Lyme Disease.

This proves that every known psychiatric disorder can be caused by an

infection (Borrelia burgdorfi Bb spirochete). So far all cases of

Alzheimer's disease tested for the Borrelia burgdorfi Bb spirochete,

which causes Lyme Disease, have tested positive.

 

Conventional medical practice in the United States largely ignores the

possibility of parasitic disease. There are several reasons for this:

 

*

When a disease is never diagnosed it is easy to assume that it

does not exist. Parasites are often overlooked in the U.S.

*

There is a shortage of technicians who are skilled in

identifying parasitic organisms.

*

Spending one's day studying microscopic sample of stool

specimens probably does not attract very many laboratory personnel.

*

There is a common misconception that parasitic problems are

primarily found in tropical countries and are rare in countries like

the U.S.A.

 

To illustrate how many health care practitioners can be fooled by

parasitic disease consider the case of Carolyn Razor. Upbeat, healthy,

energetic, psychologist Carolyn Raser returned from a vacation in

Bhutun with severe depression, exhaustion, and such swelling in her

joints she was unable to open a hotel room door. Her third M.D.

diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and started multiple drugs. Her

depression, lethargy and exhaustion persisted after 100 treatments by

assorted acupuncturists, chiropractors, and rehabilitation

specialists. A call to the Research Institute for Infectious Mental

Illness led to the discovery of three protozoan parasites and a

compromised secretory IGA system. Three weeks after eliminating her

infection she was no longer depressed, her exhaustion was gone and her

zest for life had been restored.

 

To make the proper diagnosis of psychiatric symptoms even more complex

it is now well established that the overgrowth of candida (yeast)

organisms, fungi, mycoplasma, and dangerous anerobic organiasms in the

intestinal tract after antibiotic therapy, high sugar intake, and

illnesses which injure the lining of the intestine can cause impaired

brain function (seizures, confusion, poor memory, depression, learning

difficulties, headaches and short attention span). These brain

symptoms are caused by absoption of neurotoxic substances produced by

mycoplasma, fungi, borrelia, yeast and anerobic organisms. These

neurotoxic substances also commonly cause injury to the hypothalamus

which leads to impaired production of endocrine hormones. Therefore,

patients with intestinal pathogen overgrowth often manifest impaired

function of the thyroid gland (hypothyroidism) and adrenal

insufficiency (Addison's Disease). Another factor that may contribute

to this hormonal failure is the consumption of cholesterol by

mycoplasma in nervous tissue which decreases the building substance

(cholesterol) needed to make estrogen, testosterone, progesterone,

aldactone, and cortisone. Persons with hypothyroidism (underactive

thyroid gland) often do not manifest fever when they have infections

which may lead the clinician away from considering an infectious problem.

 

The psychological treatment of chronic mental illness is often lengthy

and of marginal value. Frank Strick, Clinical Research Director of the

Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness, has gathered a large

amount of information about how commonly mental symptoms are not

appreciated to be originating[1] from infectious problems.

 

Four types of infectious problems are capable of producing mental

symptoms. These are infections well recognized for causing psychiatric

problems (pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sepsis, malaria,

Legionaires Disease, syphilis, chlamydia, typhoid fever, diphtheria,

HIV, rheumatic fever and herpes). Research done at Johns Hokins

Children's Center and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry

in 2001 disclosed that mothers with evidence of Herpes Simplex Type 2

infection during pregnancy were 6 times more likely to have a child

who later developed schizophrenia than mothers without herpes infections.

 

Parasitic infections which invade the brain (neurocysticerccosis)

manifest depression and psychosis in more than 65 % of cases. These

tapeworms produce cysts, swelling, and encephalitis in brains of

patients. Other parasitic infections can produce psychiatric symptoms

without direct brain invasion (giardia, ascaris psychosis,

trichinosis, Lyme Disease) which clear after effective therapy.

Meningitis or encephalitis was found in 24 % of 1300 cases of

trichinosis reported from Germany.

 

Acute infection with Toxoplasmosis Gondi can produce personality

changes and psychosis including delusions and auditory hallucinations.

T. Gondii can alter behavior, neurotransmitter function and accounts

for approximately 25 % of chorioretinitis usually contracted

congenitally. A large study of mentally handicapped persons revealed

that the incidence of t.gondii infection in schizophrenic patients was

twice that of control subjects. German research has revealed that

first onset schizophrenia patients have a 42 % incidence of antibodies

to toxoplasma compared to 11 % in control subjects. T. Gondi usually

is spread to humans from cats. Two studies have revealed that exposure

to cats in childhood was a risk factor for the development of

schizophrenia.

 

Two of the drugs used to treat psychosis and bipolar disorder (Haldol

and Valproic Acid) inhibit the growth of t. gondii in cerebrospinal

fluid and blood at concentrations below that being treated with these

therapies suggesting that improved mental status might actually be due

to killing t. gondii not anti-psychotic effects. The antipsychotic

drugs thorazine, haldol and clozapine inhibit viral replication.

Patients with recent onset of schizophrenia have a 400 % increase in

reverse transcripyase activity in their cerebrospinal fluid which is

seen in patients with infectious retroviruses. Cerebrospinal fluid CSF

from these recent onset schizophrenia patients inoculated into New

World Monkey cell lines caused a ten fold increase in reverse

transcriptase activity suggesting that this injected CSF contained a

replicating virus. Dr. Darren Hart of Tulane Univ. Medical School

found evidence of antibodies to retrovirus in the blood of half the

patients he tested who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar

disorder. Malhotra has demonstrated that the absence of CCR5?32

homozygotes in more than 200 schizophrenic patients sharply increased

the susceptibility to retroviral infection. These pieces of evidence

have led Johns Hopkins virologist Robert Yolken and Psychiatry

Professor Dr. E. Fuller Torrey to believe that toxoplasmosis is one of

several infectious agents that cause most cases of schizophrenia and

bipolar disorder. Dr. Torrey noted that schizophrenia and bipolar

disorder went from rare diseases in the late 19th century to common as

cat ownership became popular. Yolken designed studies that showed that

mothers of children who later developed psychosis were 4.5 times more

likely to have antibodies to toxoplasmosis than mothers of healthy

children. Yolken also learned that patients with schizophrenia of

average duration of more than 22 years who also tested positive for

cytomegalovirus (21 patients) experienced significant improvement in

psychiatric symptoms when treated with Valacyclovir[2] an antiviral

drug for 8 weeks.

 

Streptococcal infections have been followed in some children by the

abrupt onset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder within a few weeks.

 

Use of the antiviral drug Amantadine has produced greatly shortened

hospitalizations and rapid remission of psychiatric symptoms in

Germany when given to patients testing positive for Borna Disease

Virus BDV. Smaller studies in the U.S. disclosed that up to half of

Bipolar and Schizophrenic patients test positive for BDV compared to

none in healthy controls.

 

For obvious reasons toxoplasmosis has attracted the most attention.

However, many other infectious agents particularly parasitic

infections can disable normal mental function by depleting the host of

essential nutrients, interfering with enzyme and neuroimmune function,

and releasing massive amounts of waste products, enteric poisons, and

toxins which disable brain metabolism. Mature tapeworms can lay a

million eggs a day and roundworms, which afflict 25 % of the worlds

population, can lay 200,000 eggs daily. The brain requires 25 % of the

body's oxygen, nutrients, and glucose even though it makes up only 3 %

of the body's weight. Mental patients were found to have a 53.8 %

incidence of parasitic infection in a 2 year study conducted by the

Univ. of Ancona involving 238 inpatient residents in 4 Italian

psychiatric institutions.

 

Cognitive dysfunction and chronic emotional stress with symptoms of

apathy, exhaustion, confusion, poor appetite, memory loss, nervous

stomach, social withdrawal, loss of sex drive and motivation are often

attributed to depression when they were actually caused by infection.

 

Many parasitic infections escape diagnosis because standard stool

parasite studies pick up only 10 % of active infections. At times this

is caused by inconsistent shedding patterns and other cases are missed

because the parasites are outside the intestine. The World Health

Organization states that 2 billion people have worms but these are

rarely seen in stool exams. Many restaurants are staffed by persons

from foreign lands where parasites are common so exposure to parasitic

infection can occur in most U.S. restaurants.

 

To overcome these failures the Research Institute for Infectious

Mental Illness suggests ova and parasite microscopy, multifluid

antigen and antibody detection, stool cultures, enzyme immunoassays,

imaging techniques, and extensive evaluation of the patients history

and clinical information to discover chronic infections. Patients

diagnosed as chronic candidiasis (yeast) may actually have more

significant infections which are preventing long term cure. Curing

hidden infections often results in return of normal brain metabolism.

Fever and antibody elevation often disappear in patients with

neurotoxin injury to the immune system and thyroid hypofunction caused

by hypothalamic toxicity. Rebuilding the host's immune system and

restoring integrity of the intestines will help prevent relapse. Care

to not provide premature nutritional supplements that are growth

factors for certain microorganisms is vital. Screening tests for heavy

metal toxicity, environmental chemical exposure, molds,

electromagnetic stressors, abnormal glucose metabolism, brain

allergies, food sensitivities, hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter

imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, ph abnormalities, and dietary

correction can improve cognitive function.

 

In my opinion the arguments about the failure to diagnose infections

causing brain symptoms presented by Frank Strick are persuasive and

sound. Most psychiatric consultations almost certainly are not

concerned with exploring diagnostic considerations outside the

psychiatric realm. This whole field of psychiatric diagnosis needs to

be reconsidered in view of the strong evidence that toxoplasmosis,

parasitic infections, borrelia burgdorfi, candida, borna disease

virus, streptococcus, and other infectious agents are capable of

producing impaired brain function with symptoms that will generate a

psychiatric diagnosis in a conventional psychiatrist's office. There

is a real possibility that many, perhaps most patients, have an

infectious illness that is correctable not a permanent psychiatric

impairment. This failure to discover infectious causes for psychiatric

symptoms is tragic because many persons are vegetating in psychiatric

facilities for the remainder of their lives, instead of recovering

full health when their infection is cured. My suggestion to readers is

to consider exploring a consultation with the Research Institute for

Infectious Mental Illness before accepting a psychiatric diagnosis

that is likely to lead to a lengthy and minimally effective therapy.

 

The Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness is the first

comprehensive institute of its kind in the U.S. They provide testing,

clinical and consulting services to clients all over the world and

help in educating professional persons. Phone consultations are

offered. by calling 800-699-2466 then press pound (#) 831-425-5555

(patient scheduling only) or by e-mailing riimi. The

director is Frank Strick and the institute is in Santa Cruz, Ca.

 

Footnotes:

 

1 Strick, Frank Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients April 2004 pg.

123-125

2 Yolken, Robert American Journal of Psychiatry December 2003

 

© 2004 Dr. James Howenstine -

 

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