Nay_ho_tze's Medicine Musings

 B-Complex:
the mind vitamin

part 2 of 3

b complex food sources


the mental health role of vitamin B complex

Among other things, B-complex is a mind-vitamin.
Its effects contribute profoundly to our sense of well-being.
Here is a causal although by no means definitive guideline
to assess deficiency symptoms
 

Paraphrasing and quoting this edition of The Complete Book of Vitamins (Rodale) 
 “R. Glen Green, M.D. … recommended that physicians ask
[the patient specific] questions … 
regarding, not physical,
but perceptual changes involving the five senses.” 
Although not definitive by any means,
these questions are a good starting place for nutritional insight,
according to Dr. Green:

1. Does your face seem to change when you look in a mirror? 
2. Do words move when you try to read? 
3. Does the ground move when you walk?
4. Do you feel you walk on the ground or off the ground? 
5. Do pictures move when you look at them?
    [not that the pictures fly around, but that the image 
      in the photo doesn’t actually seem to be still] 
6. Do you hear someone calling your name when you are alone?

When a patient experiences some or all of these things – even sometimes – 
then Dr. Green administers another test which reveals perceptual difficulties
in sight, hearing, taste, smell and attitudes.” 
While this second test, the Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic (HOD),
is initially intended 
as a psychiatric means to diagnose schizophrenia – 
 “Dr. Green …adapted it to his medical practice and discovered
that the test also indicated vitamin B-complex deficiency.”

Now certainly i'm not suggesting that B-complex can cure schizophrenia. 
Further, a person can be deficient in B-complex and not be schizophrenic.

But what is significant is that a simple vitamin was linked 
by clinical research to a mental illness as intense as schizophrenia. 
As for myself, we Lost Ones often suffer PTSD with black hole depression
and i am no different -
discovering that research was enough for me to try B complex.
and the very unexpected results i experienced
drives my need to get the message out ...
the truth is, 
like me, you may not need an anti-depressant at all -
you may just need B complex


RELATED READINGS
in NHT's Reading Room:
  NHT's Nutritional Approach   
                                   The Care and Feeding of B Complex part 3 of 3 
                                   The Politics of Sound Nutrition
                                                Why Nutrition is Important pt. 1 of 3
References and Bibliography

if you need help finding a good multi- and B complex, contact NHT